Godalming Footfall Snapshot - Jan 2026

Key Highlights for January 2026

• Visitors up year-on-year – 465 more unique visitors came to Godalming compared with January 2025.

• Footfall slightly down – while more individual people visited the town, overall visit frequency was lower, suggesting people came less often during the month.

• Local support remains strong – visitors living within 10 miles increased, while visitors travelling from further afield declined.

• Weather likely played a role – January saw around 180% of typical rainfall and colder-than-average temperatures, which may have reduced repeat visits.

National Context

• National retail data suggests a steady but cautious start to 2026, with online spending continuing to grow (+2.2%) while in-store retail sales dipped slightly (-0.6%).

• Overall spend was up 0.8%, but transactions were slightly down by 0.2%, suggesting consumers were making slightly fewer purchases but spending a little more when they did. Non-essential categories performed more strongly than essentials, with most notable growth in clothing, general retail, specialist retail, entertainment and digital subscriptions.

• House prices up 1.2% year-on-year and mortgage rates at their lowest since 2022, though buyer demand remains around 9% lower.

Key Takeouts

The data continues to highlight Godalming’s strong and loyal local customer base. One area we are exploring in 2026 is how we can support with attracting more visitors from further afield, helping to grow the town’s overall visitor economy.

Sources: Place Informatics analysis using data from Met Office, Office for National Statistics, Barclays & Zoopla.