Workers and shoppers are becoming a far rarer sight in Leeds city centre on Mondays, compared with the rest of the week.
Data provided by the city council suggested daytime footfall is down 26 per cent at the start of week, compared with pre-pandemic levels. One local councillor said he feared Leeds becoming a “three-day city” if the trend continued and Tuesdays suffered a knock-on effect.
Daytime footfall in the city centre across the whole working week is down by 18 per cent from 2019, but events and Christmas shopping season did bring revellers out in droves in November and December. Evening footfall on weekends is also up slightly compared to three years ago.
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But Conservative councillor for Guiseley and Rawdon, Paul Wadsworth, suggested the local authority consider introducing cheaper parking charges on quiet days to address the problem. Speaking at a council scrutiny meeting on Wednesday where the figures were discussed, he added: “How are we going to increase footfall, particularly on Mondays?
“If we’re not careful, businesses will close on Mondays because they’re not getting much footfall and then people won’t come in on Mondays. That will then transfer to Tuesday and Wednesday and we’re going to be a three-day city.
“That (businesses closing on Monday) is already happening because of energy costs and that’s happening not just in the city centre, but the outer areas as well. ”
Eve Roodhouse, the council’s chief officer for culture and economy, said that Leeds’ recovery in 2022 had been above the national average. She told the meeting: “In December, footfall was up 15.3 per cent compared with 2021. So I think the overall message has to be that the city centre is performing really strongly in the context of the economy.”
Ms Roodhouse said workers across industry were generally going into the office between Tuesdays and Thursdays and that the council was trying to ensure the city centre had plenty to entice visitors. She added: “It’s not necessarily a bad thing that people have more flexibility around their ways of working.
“It’s good for people to work from home one or two days a week. It improves their lives and means they can do other things they like.
“We have to accept that the general trend in the economy is people are going to work more flexibly and we won’t necessarily see that return on Mondays in the same way.”
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