There are fears for UK high streets as a tough sales year has been topped off with disappointing Boxing Day sales, despite some of the UK’s biggest shopping centres predicting heavy footfall.

Data released from retail intelligence company Springboard shows the average number of visitors to shopping centres and high street stores has fallen for the third year in a row – this year by 4.2%.

Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “Boxing Day has become less important as a trading day. You don’t get that massive surge, particularly as we’ve had virtually continuous discounting since Black Friday [on 23 November].”

READ MORE: Major high street stores hit by retail woes

Since Britain adopted the Black Friday holiday from the US in 2012, Boxing Day sales have decreased year-on-year. Experts have called it a “tide surge” that sucks sales out of the weeks before and after the event.

According to Wehrle, there have been 4% fewer visitors to physical stores in December overall, in keeping with a long-term trend of online shopping becoming an increasingly preferred method of shopping.

Separate research by Barclaycard showed that almost 70% of those who planned to shop in the Boxing Day sales said they would make the majority of purchases online – up a massive 42% since last year. But Wehrle says that online shopping has only partly offset the alarmingly low high street sales.

READ MORE: Online shopping dominance keeps high streets quiet

Earlier this month, a government-appointed panel of experts from the retail, property and design sectors set out a series of key recommendations to reinvigorate high streets, which are in major crisis with sales being at their lowest since they were in 2008, following the last recession.

One of these recommendations was for local authorities to review parking provisions to ensure that existing charges and restrictions are not limiting accessibility to local businesses.

Conservative northern powerhouse minister Mark Berry is also now urging local councils to provide free parking to encourage people to shop on the high streets.

Berry said this week: “If local authorities want to bring people back [to high street stores], give shoppers free parking on the high street so retailers can compete with shopping centres.

“It has been tried in a number of places. Where I have seen it succeed, the free parking lasts for two hours or so, and it means new people keep coming back with fresh money in their pockets.”