Town centres’ footfall blunder
FIGURES which show the number of people who visit town centres in Rhondda Cynon Taff may have included vehicles as well as pedestrians by mistake.
FIGURES which show the number of people who visit town centres in Rhondda Cynon Taff may have included vehicles as well as pedestrians by mistake.
Footfall figures recently dropped sharply in some areas and one councillor said she has been told this could have been down to passing cars being counted as well as people on foot.
Councillor Pauline Jarman said RCT Council has recently changed the contractor who carries out the survey and since then there have been large reductions in the recorded data.
Following the change in data provider, Cllr Jarman said the figures showed that Fernhill had a drop in footfall of 65% from 14,000 to 5,000; Porth a drop of 43% from 10,500 to 6,000; and Mill Street in Pontypridd a 57% drop from 66,000 to 28,000.
Cllr Jarman, who is leader of the council’s Plaid Cymru group, said: “So many judgements are based on this data.
“It seems to be that the data that has been recorded has been so unreliable as to be useless.
“If it wasn’t for changing the provider, would we have ever known?”
The council said it has recently undertaken a comprehensive and robust review of the footfall provision across its town centres.
In a statement, the council said: “Following this review, new footfall counters, using the latest technology, have been installed at specific locations across seven town centres that will continue to provide the council with robust data that accurately reflects pedestrian movement throughout each town centre.
“The new provision, which is still very much in its infancy, shows that in some towns a decrease in footfall has been evident and whilst we cannot be sure as to the reason for this, we can be sure that overall, footfall has increased over this period.
“Data recorded in both Pontypridd and Aberdare highlight that overall, both towns have experienced a significant increase based on the previous year’s figures. We can also confirm that Tonypandy has also experienced an increase.
“The new provision will be monitored going forward to ensure the data recorded continues to accurately reflect the number of pedestrians using Rhondda Cynon Taff town centres.”