Stratford’s Christmas market boosted footfall by 67,000 in one weekend

THEY split opinion, but they do drive footfall into town.

While Christmas markets had a stormy time of it last year – the weather forced the first weekend of trading to be cancelled in Stratford and then rearranged – tens of thousands of people still made the trip to the town centre for some festive shopping.

A report to the market forum gave the footfall for one of the weekends of last year’s market. On Saturday 14th December, the footfall count in the town centre was 86,000 people compared with 40-50,000 on a normal Saturday.

On Sunday, 15th December, the number was lower at 66,000 visitors but still much higher than the norm of about 35,000.

Organisers are going to stick with the split weekend format for this year’s event which is set to take place on 29th-30th November and 6th-7th December with a reserve weekend on 13th-14th December should the weather play its part again.