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12
Nov
Knaresborough town centre footfall sees significant decline - what about Ripon and Harrogate?
New footfall data has revealed a sharp decline in the number of visitors to Knaresborough town centre over the last year.
Knaresborough Business Collective released the data, which has been collected over the last four years.
It has been created by using mobile phone data, tracking visitors once per visit each day.
The data shows the average weekly visitor count so far for 2024 is 91,227. For 2023 the average weekly visitor count was 121,427 — more than 30,000 down.
The data found that the busiest day is Friday, with an average daily visitor count of 13,750. The second busiest day is Tuesdays with 13,500 visitors. Both out-performed Wednesday market day.
The busiest and more densely visited areas are High Street and Market Place, but there has been a big decline in visitors around Castlegate, Kirkgate and Silver Street since 2023.
A total of 63% of all visitors are over the age of 45; just 16% are under 30.
June and July have been the quietest months in the year for visitors for two years running while November and December were the busiest months in 2023.
The Stray Ferret contacted the Knaresborough Business Collective for more detail but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
However, its post said:
The data shows lots of positives, clearly we are a vibrant tourist town with good data figures for a town of our size, and above the national average in places, but it’s not all roses, and visitor count is definitely down from 2023, which I know some of us are feeling this year.
Harrogate
Harrogate figures
In Harrogate the latest data accessed by the Stray Ferret, which was provided by Harrogate BID, in August.
The data was collected via the same means as Knaresborough - through location settings on a person’s mobile phone.
In 2024 (until August) the total footfall was 8,045,803. The highest footfall in one day was recorded in January at 81,131.
Meanwhile, the lowest daily footfall was recorded in February at 8,866.
The most visited areas of Harrogate were shown as Cambridge Crescent, Station Parade, Cambridge Street and James Street.
According to the Harrogate BID “it seems to be a trend nationally that footfall is down on previous years, especially 2023.”
The data from 2024 shows that people often travelled from HG1, HG2, HG4, HG3 and YO61.
It added that the dwell time in the town was the highest on a Thursday, with Wednesday a close second. Visitors spent the least amount of time in Harrogate on a Sunday, with an average of 1 hour and 40 minutes in the town centre.
People over the age of 60 were the most frequent visitors to the BID area in 2024 so far, with 33.4% within this age group. Meanwhile, the lowest was between the ages of 15 and 29 at 18.5% Visitors had been 50.9% female and 49.1% male.
Ripon market place
Significant rise in Ripon
The Stray Ferret also received data regarding Ripon’s footfall from the city’s BID.
The data was shared last month and indicated a significant rise in Ripon’s footfall, with an average weekly count reaching 128,043, marking a 35.8% increase compared to the year-to-date average for 2024.
The BID said:
Comparative analysis with October 2023 shows a substantial growth in average daily footfall, from 14,051 to 18,292.
This 30.2% increase is essential for long-term strategic planning and the data also highlights a consistent year-over-year growth in average weekly footfall, which has risen by 30.1% from the previous year, underlining the effectiveness of strategies aimed at boosting Ripon's attractiveness.
The regional catchment map data revealed a rise in visitor share from West Yorkshire, increasing from 3.5% to 9.0%.
Additionally, the catchment map data shows HG4 as the area with the highest visitor share, contributing 14.5% to the overall footfall.
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