KIRKHAM FOOTFALL DATA

Kirkham is a market town in Fylde situated amidst rural surroundings, conveniently located near Preston and Blackpool via the M55 and M6 motorways.

The town features a central high street and market square, recently revitalised through a regeneration initiative in 2023/24. Local businesses in the town centre enjoy robust support from the community. Adjacent business parks accommodate a mix of SMEs and larger enterprises like Westinghouse and Trilanco, providing significant employment opportunities for residents. As of June 3, 2024, the ground floor occupancy rate of commercial premises along the main business thoroughfare, from Town End to Hillside, Preston Road, including lower Freckleton Street, stood at an impressive 92%, based on an on-site survey conducted in May 2024.

Kirkham has experienced notable commercial growth since 2021, particularly in the personal services sector. Footfall data, gathered via geo-location-enabled mobile devices, provides an estimate of visitor traffic. The accompanying map’s blue and red zones represent the captured areas and main streets, respectively.

Please click on the images to produce a larger image in a pop up window.

This table shows the indicative numbers of people (with mobile devices enabled) who visited Kirkham during the month. This also includes residents and workers who shop, have their hair cut, visit the pub, post office, etc. All this foot traffic, and mostly with spending involved, benefits the local economy.

Kirkham’s footfall dipped in previous years in August. The school holidays coincide with this dip, so it could be said, though there are other contributing factors, that the schools may provide the town with an average of  8,300 people per term month (average 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024). This footfall is worthy of note for the daytime and early evening economy.

This graph shows the indicative numbers of people (with mobile devices enabled) who have visited Kirkham over the last few years. You can see the effect that COVID-19, the slight dips in Summer due to school holidays, has had on the local economy. Kirkham benefits from a very strong local economy and this is why the town is, with recent investment and new businesses opening, recovering quicker than many other towns in the North West and UK.

This chart shows how Kirkham is performing in the footfall number growth stakes against other towns in the North West and UK. This figure varies from month to month, but on the whole Kirkham is performing well.

Dwell time refers to the time a shopper or visitor spends in a town centre, event, shopping centre, or individual store. It is a crucial metric to appreciate because the longer visitors stay in a location, the more money they tend to spend. Extended stays (over 40 minutes) is encouraged through attractive and well-maintained high streets, high-quality retail and hospitality venues with excellent customer service, interesting artisan markets, and engaging visitor experiences such as events and town trails.

Additional incentives, like loyalty card schemes, further motivate visitors to prolong their stay and make repeat visits, benefiting multiple businesses on the high street by attracting the same customers repeatedly.

To improve spending in Kirkham, the town and its businesses must find ways to increase spender dwell time. Through Fylde Councils UK SPF support programmes, all Kirkham businesses have been offered advice and support to increase their business performance and attract new customers. Fylde and Kirkham Town Council are also engaging with market organisers and event teams.

Where do visitors to our towns come from and why does this matter?

It is important for both the private and public sectors to appreciate where a town and, indeed, borough footfall, originates from to conduct target marketing. Marketing, whether this be digital media, paper/poster advertising, or social media is conducted to entice both shoppers, visitors, as well as investors and new businesses.

Marketers can source their own data to examine footfall demographics in-depth, but the town’s main postcode statistics provided indicate potential areas for marketing activity to assist with improving customer loyalty and repeat visits.

The maps provided here show the extent of the postcode area origins of those visiting Kirkham. See the scales to the right of the images. The circles indicate the mile radius to provide scale. The blue and red depict the density volume of those visiting.