Graham, Tom and Ian

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New figures show Stockport empty shops study was wrong

by Lib Dem team on 24 February, 2012

A detailed new study showing the number of vacant shops on every street in Stockport Town Centre has proved that, far from having the highest number of vacancies of any large centre, as a recent study claimed, the town is doing much better with only one-in-five units empty.

Councillor Iain Roberts said “Stockport Council is working hard to boost the town centre, looking at every level. Whether it’s the £16 million investment in Grand Central, the new £6 million multi-storey car park due to begin construction, the £9 million purchase of the Debenhams site, encouraging pop-ups and innovative uses for units, the new Sainsbury’s Knightsbridge development, pay by mobile phone that’s soon coming to the town’s car parks or any of the many other initiatives, there’s a huge amount going on.”

The benefits are starting to be seen. Stockport’s car parks are busier and footfall in the town centre is up a massive 20% year-on-year. The Merseyway Shopping Centre had over 10 million visitors in 2011, and all but four of the centre’s 104 units are occupied or about to be occupied.

Depending on where you draw the boundary of the town centre, between 17% and 22% of the units were unoccupied in December 2011. That’s too many and we hope to see the figure come down. But it’s nowhere near the 30% wrongly claimed in the recent national survey, and Stockport is a long, long way from being one of the worst performing town centres.

Iain added “Some people may say that we have two studies and who’s to know which is right. To them I simply say – ‘go and count for yourself’. The figures below are street by street. If you think it’s wrong, go and see.”

Stockport Town Centre vacancies – by street

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