Footfall and visitor numbers in the town centre continuing to grow

Footfall in Wrexham town centre is continuing to see an upward trend, according to new figures released at this month’s Town Centre Forum.

As Wrexham.com reported in August 2017, a new electronic pedestrian footfall counter has been installed at the corner of Hope Street and Regent Street – between Barclays bank and WH Smith.

Over recent months data showing the footfall figures for the year so far have been released, documenting the monthly shopping and visiting trends for the town centre.

Unsurprisingly the data showed that the start of the year had the lowest recorded footfall so far, with 50,545 visits at the end of the January. The data does suggest however that the New Year sales provided a boost to the town at the start of 2017, with 67,495 recorded visits.

Perhaps unsurprisingly some of the highest footfall recorded so far this year was over the summer holidays, with 102,487 visits recorded between Sunday August 13th and Saturday August 19th. The highest daily count of the week was recorded on August 19th, with a peak of 17,462 visitors in the town.

At this week’s meeting, Town Centre, Markets and Events Manager, Amanda Davies explained that in May and June this year the town was averaging between 66,000-68,000 a week.

Despite the boost over the summer holidays, there has been a 30,000 increase from earlier this year, with footfall averaging between 96,000-98,000 per week since the new term started.

She added that the stats can be broken down further, showing that Mondays when the market is on and Saturday lunchtimes are the busiest times of the week.

It is anticipated the town will see a further increase in the coming weeks with the Christmas shopping season starting.

The newly-elected Town Centre Forum Chairman, Alex Jones, said the figures are something to promote to retailers and businesses who are looking to come to Wrexham.

The footfall counters were installed in the town following an analysis of Wrexham’s High Street performance by the Manchester Metropolitan University back in 2014, which later put forward a number of recommendations to improve the town.

One such goal was to look at ways of increasing footfall, through initiatives such as enhancing the appearance of town along with developing new events. As a result data from a new electronic pedestrian counter installed on Hope Street has been feeding through weekly counts to the Town Centre Management team.

Destination Manager for Wrexham Council, Joe Bickerton also noted the impact tourism was having on the local economy, explaining that people are coming from “far and wide” to visit Wrexham.

In August a visitor survey of 300 people found that 62% of people who took part came beyond a 10 mile radius into the town. This was up significantly from five years ago.

Joe explained that work is now being done to change Wrexham from an “emerging tourism hub to a functioning hub”

He said: “The initial findings for the Tourism survey work undertaken in August (as part of our new 3-year Destination Plan) was that there was far greater percentage of pedestrians in town from beyond a 10-mile radius than there was back in 2012.

“People doubt things like that, but if you read the visitor book in St Giles and look at the map in the Tourist Information Centre, people do come from far and wide. It is down to us and the businesses to keep promoting Wrexham.”