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‘Bringing people into the city centre is massive’ - footfall remains strong in Lancaster as visitor push continues

Wednesday, 4 May 2022 11:05

The head of Lancaster BID says there’s an ongoing push to increase footfall, as visitors to the city continue to rise post pandemic.

New figures show that the confidence in Lancaster city centre continues, with visitor numbers over the Bank Holiday weekend strong.

Saturday (April 30th) was 7.6% busier than the previous Saturday (April 23rd) – these figures following a week which saw the city centre more than 11% busier than the previous week - against a back drop of the national average increase at just 0.5%.

Now, the head of Lancaster BID (Business Improvement District), says he’s keen for this momentum to continue.

Lancaster BID represents 383 businesses locally with the mission to improve experiences, stage events, and keep the local streets safe, among a diverse mix of aims.

‘’Bringing people into the city centre is massive,’’ Lancaster BID manager, Tony Johnson, told Beyond Radio.

‘’We want to push Lancaster as a destination for both locals and visitors. Over the last year we believe we’ve done a really good job in pushing that to the locals, we now need to push that visitor market.

‘’We know Lancaster is a completely different destination to Morecambe, it’s a different offering, but the word ‘tourism’ can be used in both places.

‘’The heritage of Lancaster is huge and a card we underplay. We don’t push it enough. There are tremendous independent businesses in Lancaster – 67% of all businesses are independently owned – so we offer something different.

‘’Hospitality too. Anyone wanting a day or night out had more than 40 venues to choose from, so there’s a lot to talk about and we need to get better at telling people about it.

‘’We support many events too. Things such as Festa Italia at the end of the month, then into June we’re sponsoring Lancaster Pride, and a new event called the Festival of the Earth at the Priory.

‘’We have these events that will organically pull visitors in, but we also need to tell them why they need to come back more often.’’

Other events planned in the coming months include entertainment in the city centre every Sunday between July 3rd and September 18th, and the popular Dyno Fest returning over two days in mid-July.

Other recent figures show that Lancaster is continuing to recover from the impacts of Covid, with figures showing footfall returning much faster than the average for the rest of the UK.

Quarter 1 results show Lancaster footfall increasing at 33.6% above the national benchmark and up 46.5% against the benchmark for region. The figures are calculated through comparisons with Q1 2021 (Lancaster +161.5%, UK +127.9%, Region +115.1%).

Saturday remains the busiest day of the week and the busiest hour is midday during the week and 1:00pm at weekends.

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