South Wales Evening Post - 28 November 2008
IN these difficult economic times, it would be easy to picture city centres as desolate wastelands, with eager shoppers spending their hard- earned cash few and far between.
But over the past few weeks, traders have seen a different picture, with encouraging numbers of shoppers heading to the city centre.
Indeed, during October footfall cameras in the city centre recorded more than one million visitors — a 65 per cent rise on the previous month.
Figures released by Swansea Bid (Business Improvement District) show 1,000,971 visits were recorded.
It does not seem to be a one off, because the trend has continued into November with close to 500,000 visits already recorded by the cameras by the middle of the month.
Shop bosses were surely looking at a bleak midwinter as everyone felt the pinch from the economic downturn, but it seems that some of the bigger city centre stores may have helped save the smaller ones. Shoppers flocked to Swansea last week as stores such as Marks & Spencer and Debenhams held major sales. The city was packed and this had an effect to the smaller stores.
Of course, it will take a lot more than an increased flow of shoppers to say Swansea is a boom town escaping the credit crunch affecting the rest of the UK, but seeing more people willing to part with their hard-earned cash is surely cause for at least a small celebration.
It is hoped that the return of the Christmas Market to Oxford Street and the arrival of Waterfront Winterland in the grounds of the National Waterfront Museum will also help draw crowds in the run-up to Christmas.
The increased number of shoppers has been seen as a major boost for the city and has been welcomed by Swansea Council leader Chris Holley.
He said: "These figures make for enormously encouraging reading, because there's so much hard work being undertaken to increase the attractiveness of Swansea city centre.
"Swansea is the regional shopping centre for South West Wales and the build-up to Christmas is traditionally the busiest time of the year, but the volume of shoppers in the city centre has been especially noticeable over the last few weeks.
"We're fortunate to have a city centre that stands out from the crowd, combining a mixture of high street names with a thriving independent retail scene, and the largest indoor market in Wales."
This week's pre-Budget report seemed to be aimed at putting more money into the pockets of shoppers in an attempt to increase spending power.
Nicola Dixon, who runs the Choice is Yours greengrocer stall in Swansea Market, said that while everyone was feeling the pinch, business was not as bad as feared.
She said: "For greengrocers, this is traditionally our worst quarter. We always panic at this time of year, but we are ticking along.
"I believe people are changing their shopping habits, steering away from the supermarkets and going back to more traditional ways of shopping."
