Town centre footfall up 21% – more counters to be installed to collect extra data

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Apr 11th, 2018

An additional footfall counter is set to be installed in Wrexham town centre, with new figures revealing a further increase in footfall.

Wrexham’s current year to date figures for the first quarter of January, February and March 2018 show a 21% increase compared to 2017.

The data shows, as is becoming usual and not surprising, that the last Saturday of the month is the busiest day for the town.

This year has seen a few flurries of snow, some worse than others, however the data shows the use of the town is not overly affected by the light coverings – however serious snowfall in ‘Week 9’ did knock the numbers down by 10%. It was noted every other week was ‘peaking over 50% from last year’.





The previous data release in February said that footfall between December 31st 2017 and January 27th 2018 was up 16.9% on the previous year and during that four week period 282,135 visits were recorded – up from the 241,271 in the same period last year.

The latest figures recorded 302,000 visits in February and 377,000 visits in March.

The count of visitors in the town is recorded by a digital pedestrian counter at the corner of Hope Street and Regent Street, installed to replace the manual ‘clicker’ quarterly numbers historically used. The system has been in place for well over a year, so now year on year comparisons are able to be made.

A new counter is being installed on High Street that will measure footfall not just for day time shoppers and those using the town centre, but also the ‘night time economy’ of those visiting the bars and restaurants of the town.

There are also plans to introduce an additional counter in the future.

A Council Officer explained: “We want more as we want to be as accurate as you can be. The technology says it does not double count or duplicate people, and it is a standard used across towns and cities.

Despite questions previously being raised over the data collection, the year on year comparison on the same methodology does show an increase regardless on thoughts over the firmness of either sets of figures.

Eagles Meadow manager and former Forum Chair Kevin Critchley enquired if the increased footfall is matched up by increase use of council car parks, and was told that it is being ‘looked at’ with the suggestion that could become part of the reporting.

We here at Wrexham.com asked if Eagles Meadow were sharing their footfall data, as they have several counters installed, and the idea was not ruled out, although no data sharing is taking place as of yet.

For those interested there is a video by Spring Board showing how the system in Wrexham could be working: