Happy Feet – Dun Laoghaire Footfall Report
November & December 2016
Location of some of the Dun Laoghaire’s Smart Bins used in this analysis
Footfall is up!
The towns Smart Bins, which were installed in October 2015 by dlr County Council, can track the pedestrian traffic in and around Dún Laoghaire. The information they provide can be used to help both the County Council & BID effectively plan for the towns future, and measure the success of events that have taken place.
We compared the footfall data from the towns Smart Bins over the last two years at five key locations for the November and December period.
2016 was the first year that both the Black Friday Weekend Sales & the Ice Rink by the dlr Lexicon were on during the festive period, and both had a positive effect on the number of pedestrians through the town.
The main areas which we looked at were; Crofton Road – beside the DART Station, Upper Georges Street – People’s Park, Lower Georges Street – York Road Junction, Marine Road – County Hall, Marine Road – Church (see map above).
November 2016 saw footfall increase by 15.75% in the areas studied, up to 314,554 in 2016 from 265,006 the previous year.
The area with the greatest change was outside the County Hall which saw footfall up 52% in 2016, this can be attributed to the Black Friday weekend, and Santa’s arrival which both happened in the last two weeks of the month.
December 2016 also saw footfall in the town increase by 7.70% moving from 284,884 in 2015 to 308,635 last year. Again, the greatest increase area was outside County Hall with an increase of 16.74%.
Over the 2 month period we looked at, footfall was up from 549,890 in 2015 to 623,179 representing an 11.76% increase.
With footfall increasing throughout the town, the number of vacant retail units decreasing, the positive feeling surrounding the towns businesses, coupled with the positive media coverage (see The Sunday Times – 5th February 2017), not to mention some of the events happening this year, the Business Improvement District is confident 2017 will bring a new tide to Dun Laoghaire!
