Newbury high street tracking for recovery after relaxation of Covid restrictions

With the easing of UK Covid restrictions over the past five months, high street businesses in Newbury are striking an optimistic note – and leading figures remain confident of a recovery.

Despite poor weather and pandemic concerns, there are strong indications that shoppers are returning to the town centre.

The Newbury Weekly News spoke to Melissa Hughes, chief executive of the Newbury Business Improvement District (BID), a body promoting local commerce.

Since the lifting of restrictions, the BID has worked to organise a series of events aimed at drawing crowds on to the streets of Newbury.

The Summer Series, featuring shows, entertainment and family-friendly activities, ran through July and August, although poor weather forced the cancellation of some dates.

Mrs Hughes remains optimistic about the possibility of recovery and said of the reopening period: “It’s a challenging time, and I suppose I’m cautiously optimistic about what’s going to come up going forward.

“Things are going well, relatively, compared to some other places – for example, we’re tracking at about 80 per cent of normal footfall in Northbrook Street.

“If you look at the national average for high streets, it’s about 70 per cent – and that’s comparing it to 2019.

“What we have to take into account is that there’s still a lot of workers who aren’t coming into town during the week.

“We’ve spoken to quite a few offices, and there’s definitely still a hybrid working element going forward, and I think that that’s not going to be just a temporary thing for a lot of businesses.”

Mrs Hughes remains confident of a pick-up in trading, noting that, as of September, a total of 23 new businesses have opened in Newbury.

Alongside offices, this figure includes nine hospitality venues, nine retailers and two leisure venues.

Seventeen of the new businesses are independents, but six national chains and franchises – including Next and HMV – are also opening outlets, indicating a positive outlook regarding the viability of Newbury.

The Parkway Shopping complex remains a centre of commercial activity in the town and the footfall situation there is tracking at 90 per cent of 2019 levels.

Andrew Marmot has been centre manager at Parkway for almost five years, working to build relationships between shops and the wider community.

Mr Marmot also places a great emphasis on the role of new businesses in getting consumers back on to the high street.

He said: “Since we reopened earlier in the year, we have been delighted to welcome everyone back to Parkway, and we have been thrilled with how our new retailers have been received.

“As well as welcoming one of the biggest high street Next stores in the country we have responded to customer feedback and have changed our retailer mix to welcome new local and independent operators like The Sweetbox, 2112 Barbers, Artisan’s Handmade, La’De Kitchen and a relocation for Luna Boutique to a bigger and better shop.

“In October, we will welcome HMV as they make their return to Newbury with their new store full of high-quality physical media and merchandise.”

Among the new businesses at Parkway is 2112 Barbers, and owner Aaron Daws reports an overwhelming reception since opening day.

Mr Daws acknowledges that pandemic restrictions have disrupted the day-to-day social experience of running a barbershop. But he said: “We had an incredibly busy month for the whole of April – fully booked all day, every day – which was excellent. Obviously, we wouldn’t normally have that level of business.

“I was hoping we could get to a level where we’d have the business levels we had in April in nine months to a year.

People have seen the benefit of barber shops through lockdown, doing their own trims: “So maybe people have got a new-found appreciation for what we do.”