The Chronicle Corrections & complaints City centre suffers drop in number of visitors In today’s Chronicle

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NEWCASTLE city centre suffered a significant drop in visitors before Christmas, new figures have revealed.

Just under 100,000 fewer people came to the city centre last November and December compared to in 2022 – bucking the national trend of improved festive footfall.

The drop has been blamed on the impact of rail and bus strikes affecting the North East, an increase in online shopping and the cost of living crisis.

It comes despite praise for Newcastle’s Christmas market from organisers, who said it gave the city’s economy a £56.8m boost – up 19% on the previous year.

But a report presented to councillors this week outlines how the overall number of visitors to the wider city centre fell from 1.79 million across November and December 2022 to 1.69m in 2023, a fall of 5.6%.

Nationally, high street footfall was 0.8% down for November and 2.1% up for December.

Jen Hartley, Newcastle City Council’s head of economic development, said the 2023 Christmas market was “the best seen in recent years” – with efforts made to involve more local traders in the annual attraction.

She told the authority’s economy, jobs and skills scrutiny committee on

Monday: “That has certainly seen a vast amount of new visitors coming to the city centre. But what we are seeing when speaking to retailers in the city centre is that they are very cognisant of the rise of online shopping. They are starting to look at how they can have a more experiential offer to customers.”

There had been questions over whether the council’s decision to up parking charges in its city centre car parks by up to 30p per hour last April had an impact on the reduced footfall. However, the council said this appeared to be “not significant”.

Figures show an overall decrease of roughly 200 vehicles using the city centre’s popular multi-storey car parks in the last week before Christmas in 2023 compared to 2022.

At Monday’s meeting, councillors asked for comparisons to be produced showing how Newcastle’s footfall compared to other major cities like Manchester and Leeds – as well as to the Metrocentre, where parking is free.

The committee’s chair, Lib Dem Greg Stone, said: “If I was a shopper living in the outer west of Newcastle then I would have a choice between the Metrocentre or the city centre for that shopping experience, and that is that challenge.

“If there is free parking five minutes’ drive over the river, or longer depending on the A1 traffic, how do we compete with that?”

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