Leader disputes plummeting footfall and addresses vacant shops in Ipswich town centre

A council leader has disputed plummeting figures for footfall and addressed high vacant shop numbers in a town centre.

Yesterday evening, members of Ipswich’s strategic overview and scrutiny committee got to grill the council’s leader, Cllr Neil MacDonald, on his performance within his portfolio, which largely includes economic development.

The report painted a declining picture of people visiting the town centre with footfall figures down from 949,995 in the 2022/23 financial year to 679,077 in 2023/24 — almost a 30 per cent drop.

When questioned yesterday, Cllr MacDonald recognised there were challenges but disputed the figures and said the drop had been down to an inaccurate way the data was collected.

The council had previously met its target for footfall.

He added: “People will come in if the offer is right for them, I don’t think we’ve hit the nail on the head on how we can do that.”

The leader confirmed a new way of collecting data was being implemented, which picked up anonymous signals from mobile phones as a more accurate way to track footfall.

After the meeting, he said: “We dispute some of those figures — I have looked at the stats, they don’t make sense, they’re inconsistent.

“There are a lot of new shops which have opened in town in the last year, it’s filling up, there are also more restaurants coming in, I don’t see why footfall would have gone down by such a big number.

“There are people going up and down [the town centre], the stats don’t seem to bear that out.”

Footfall data was also taken before Ipswich Town were promoted to the Premier League, which the leader said would impact next year’s figures.

On shop vacancies, data from the report also showed a spike to 92 at the end of 2023/24, up from 63 the year before — since the end of 2021/22, 39 shops have opened in the town.

Addressing this, Cllr MacDonald said the authority’s Cornhill strategy and revamping of Lloyds Avenue would bring a ‘different vibe’ and make the town more ‘vibrant, busy, and enjoyable’.

He also said the council was focusing on bringing more food and drink businesses to the town centre and argued performance being measured on traditional shops was outdated due to changing buying habits.

With data only up to March, any shops opening or closing since would have also not been taken into account.

Other performance indicators were also present in the report but not necessarily discussed during the meeting.

These included the council’s £55,517 loss in business rates from empty properties in the last financial year, almost £15,000 more than the previous financial year, the majority of which came from the old crown court building, in Civic Drive, and St Peters House, in Grimwade Street — the report stated the £20,000 target would have been met were it not for the two buildings.

The council has also seen an increase in the average weekly wage, with workers now receiving £642, from £593.30 in 2022/23, to £642 in the last financial year.