Agenda item

To receive a briefing note from the Executive Director of People on what is being done to stimulate footfall in the City Centre and to monitor progress

The Business, Economy and Enterprise Scrutiny Board (3) considered a briefing note of the Executive Director of People that gave an overview of city centre footfall patterns and the impact of events to support the increase in visitor numbers.

Footfall measured the number of people (traffic not visitor numbers) passing multiple sites in the city centre. The City Council managed footfall camera collecting devices across six locations in the city centre, located in Upper Precinct, Hertford Street, City Arcade, Market Way, Smithford Way and Priory Place. In addition Lower Precinct and West Orchards figures were added to collate a combined footfall figure for the centre. Footfall was impacted by both changes in the number of visitors to the city centre and changes in visitor patterns. Footfall figures indicated:

·  Year-on-year Footfall -  the long-term trend showed that Coventry had performed slightly better than national figures with city centre footfall 13% below that of 2005, compared to 15% nationally.

·  2015 Weekly Footfall - was better than national figures. Since week 37 and the opening of a number of restaurants in Cathedral Lanes, footfall in Upper Precinct had been up 4.2% against the previous year.

·  Evening footfall - was up compared to last year and had substantially increased in recent weeks with evening footfall up 55% against the same period last year, suggesting the new restaurant developments were impacting footfall.

·  Event impacts - footfall patterns during specific city centre events had shown that during core hours of the 2014 Christmas Lights Switch-on footfall was 21% higher than the previous year’s event; this year’s student shopping night saw footfall increase 71% against the previous week and Motofest, Skyride and Oktoberfest had helped to increased footfall.

·  Student impact - this year’s Fresher’s week saw an increase of 8.5% against the previous week and by a further 5.1% the following week when students returned.

Over the last year the city centre had seen a substantial increase in its retail ranking, moving up 13th places to 47th place. 

The Board questioned officers and discussed the following issues:

·  Maximising on the attractions that increase footfall during Student Freshers Week

·  Learning from the data collected in areas of the City Centre that had higher footfall to improve footfall in other areas

·  The importance of the visual effect of gateways to the City and the central area in attracting visitors/returning visitors

·  Identifying the attractions that ed in strong peaks of footfall during the year

·  Consideration of barriers, to maximise views of what’s available in the City Centre – viewing distances showcase shops and facilities

·  Recognising changing shopping habits i.e. online shopping and retail park shopping

·  Promotion and marketing of the City and the events being held

·  Developing more event spaces in the Centre

·  The provision of covered areas to attract shoppers all year round even in inclement weather conditions

·  The aspiration of that greater footfall would be achieved in the City following the implementation of major projects currently underway i.e. Friargate, City Centre South and City Centre Destination Facility

The Board agreed that obtaining comparative statistics on city centre footfall from other authorities in the region may be useful and asked officers to request this information.

RESOLVED that the Business, Economy and Enterprise Scrutiny Board (3) notes the footfall patterns in Coventry City Centre and the impact of events to support the increase in footfall.