Last Saturday's retail revival initiative on London's Oxford Street brought mixed results as figures show more people visited the area on the same day last year.
According to retail tracking firm SPSL, 'Celebrate Oxford Street - Dress to Impress' event - when the shopping hotspot was pedestrianised for the first time in an effort to revive stores' fortunes - helped increased consumer numbers by 30% compared to the previous week.
But in contrast, visitors were down 5% in comparison to the same day in 2004.
SPSL said the figures reflect the enormity of the challenge facing Oxford Street and other areas like it in encouraging shoppers back.
"Welcome to retailers as they are, promotions and marketing campaigns alone are not going to be sufficient to attract shoppers back permanently to the West End [of London]," said Dr Tim Denison, from SPSL.
"The issues are more deep rooted than that. Some of the blame can be attributed to the fallout from 7 July [terrorist attacks] and the general retail slowdown, but certainly not all of it.
"The downward trend in shopper numbers there was present long before this summer, the terrorist attacks and the congestion charge zone."
