Cheaper Car Parking Sees Increased Footfall In Eagles Meadow

Eagles Meadow is seeing its highest pedestrian count numbers since 2010 after the pre-Christmas parking charge changes.

On Christmas Eve shoppers were given a rare treat in the form of free car parking at Eagles Meadow car park. This later turned into a Christmas miracle when it was announced that car parking prices at the car park had been slashed, offering cheaper prices for customers.

Since the introduction of the new fees, many people have told Wrexham.com that they have now opted to park in the car park and that there has been a big increase in the number of shoppers opting to use the facility.

Speaking at today’s Town Centre Forum meeting, Eagles Meadow Manager Kevin Critchley noted that the drop in car parking prices had resulted in a positive increase in footfall at the shopping centre.

Mr Critchley said that pedestrian flows at Eagles Meadow had been ‘down’, with 2015 being lower year on year than 2014 figures, “There was free parking on Christmas Eve, which is astounding for us. Since then the pedestrian counts have turned around and we are registering them higher than anytime since 2010, January ran at a 10% increase on the previous years.”

Footfall on the Yorke Street entrance onto Eagles Meadow has also seen an increase in nearly 20% since the parking charges were reduced. Mr Critchley added: “Over time we weren’t sure if it was having an impact in town and more people coming into Eagles Meadow, or people parking and then going into town then coming back. But the figures show a lot of people are coming to Eagles Meadow to shop, but then also moving into main part of town via Yorke Street entrance.”

Mr Critchley also told the meeting that more needs to be done to promote the town centre to further catchment areas to ‘south Chester’ and Oswestry to increase footfall in Wrexham – with the new parking charges seen as an attractive incentive to shoppers.

He added: “Wrexham needs to start targeting places like Whitchurch and Oswestry. Now we can present superb rates, we believe what we should do is market Wrexham as a town, not as Eagles Meadow, the markets or the old town centre and become capital of north Wales – be it capital of leisure or shopping.

“The changes are a fantastic step forward for Wrexham to get businesses in and grow businesses in Wrexham as a whole. I have said a few times that Eagles Meadow is not the Trafford Centre, it cannot thrive on its own. Likewise Wrexham is not Manchester, it cannot thrive on its own.

“However together as a town centre, Eagles Meadow and the markets there is an offer at a fantastic level. We need to stop competing with each other and target inside the town and outside and show that people don’t need to go outside of the town shopping.

“This is a golden opportunity for us and we really start taking advantage of it.”

Joking, Mr Critchley called the impending drop of some Council parking prices as a ‘concern’ but was confident customers would choose to park “undercover, with lighting, cctv cameras with patrols, rather than a piece of ground that is not particularly well lit now the council is using candles…”

Lead Member for Environment and Transport Cllr David Bithell said: “Everyone welcomes the news from Eagles Meadow. One of the criticisms when you see on forums and in public, people don’t understand that the council don’t operate Eagles Meadow. Me and Cllr Neil Rogers met with Vinci last year and they didn’t want to change any tariffs, it was a very negative response.

“I welcome change of ownership. Kevin sits more comfy in his chair than he used to, the car parking used to be extortionate at some stages. Wrexham Council do a number of free days and I look forward to Eagles Meadow doing a number of them as well.”

Mr Critchley perhaps indicating this is unlikely as the carpark is a commercially run service rather than via a local authority, observed: “It is harder to do business when others give things away for nothing”.

Eagles Meadow is on a long term lease from Wrexham Council expiring in 2258, so naturally Wrexham.com took a look at the documents to discover what control the Council has over parking prices. At the time we asked if Wrexham Council regretted not being firmer in the creation of lease in 2008 to introduce car park price controls and capping, however were told such things were not possible legally.

However it appears lessons have been learnt on the impact such lack of a control over the years, with the recent Arts Hub car park plans under the microscope Wrexham.com queried if any influence would be maintained when the People’s Market carpark is given to the (likely) trust running the centre. Cllr Hugh Jones told us at in January that in the ‘final legal service level agreement we will be seeking to maintain some influence over the car parking charges. If you price yourself out people will not come.”