Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Gloria Johnson, Mark Whittington and Ben Green.

Councillors Graham Jeal and Paul Martin acted as substitutes for this meeting.

Members are asked to disclose any interests in matters for consideration at the meeting.

There were none.

Thomas Rossington and Kelly Navon from Visitor Insights provided a presentation in order to explain the data to the Committee.

Visitor Insights had been working with the Council for the last 2-3 years to assist in analysing the footfall data through their platform.

The presentation provided:

·       Data source and how data is collected.

·       Data processing and extrapolation.

·       Terain platform.

·       Key features (Historic Trends, GDPR Compliant, Granular Outputs and Varying Scales).

·       How the Terain platform worked on location-based analytics.

·       Data pipeline refreshes.

·       Terain’s product enhancement cycles.

·       Terain’s three geofences.

·       Additional visitor insights products.

·       Customer access strategy.

One Member queried how data would account for visitors without a mobile phone.

Visitor Insights clarified that representative samples by extrapolating the data to provide a real-world context. The modelling and attribution of visits based on the devices picked up and switched were based on visitors that do not have a mobile phone or do not have their device switched on.

Visit attribution algorithm which would take a representative sample of the UK, ensure from data aggregations that provided enough of a cross section of the market and factor in elements such as, the population size of the area in which the device was coming from and the weight applied to that visit attribution when looking at allocating visits to a certain area. Taking into consideration the weighting according to a population size, to allocate for a certain area. There were instances where the sample size may be relatively low in population where the device usage was low. A weight was still applied to that, however, it was difficult to allocate visits from a low population size.

Clarification was sought around how figures may be inflated or deflated as a result of trains travelling through Grantham.

Visitor Insights clarified that a device or visitor would need to spend a minimum of five minutes within a geofence, to ensure they were a legitimate visitor. Any trains passing through a geofence at 50/60mph would not be counted as a visit, which would ensure data set was not corrupt. 

A consideration in terms of allocating locations to geofences was the velocity and time devices may ping. The system tracked pedestrians rather than vehicular data, which was calculated by velocity of the device.

A query was raised on what percentage of the figures provided was made up of non-device footfall.

Visitor Insights would look into a sample representation of the market to extrapolate the data cross. In some instances, 25% of the population count in a specific area to extrapolate against which would provide enough context for a sample size. They would not require 100% to 80% view of the entire population from a device count perspective to be able to extrapolate and get the real-world context.

The footfall figures being produced were not 100% certain of being accurate. It was ensured that real-world context was being used to ensure trends largely align with alternative data sets available within the market.

It was highlighted that a percentage of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

To update and seek the views of the Finance and Economic Overview and Scrutiny Committee (FEOSC) Members on the progress made towards the production of a Grantham Town Centre Action Plan.

The Chairman informed the Committee of the following amendment to Section 2.11 of the report:

‘Across 2024 Grantham Market has shown significant growth and there are now more than 40 stalls let on a regular basis to traders at Grantham Market’.

The Leader of the Council presented the report which outlined the development of the Action Plan for Grantham Town Centre.

The Committee had previously debated the Action plan on the 26 November 2024, but, requested further opportunity to scrutinise the medium and long-term elements of the Action Plan, through an Extraordinary Meeting. The Committee did, however, endorse the short-term elements of the Action Plan. The aim of the plan was to provide a strategic framework to ensure activities are targeted.

The Head of Economic Development provided a presentation to the Committee, which included:

·       Engagement – encourage positivity within the town and the continuation of relationship building with local retailers, stakeholders etc.

·       Marketing – A marketing strategy had been developed that will include a website, external marketing via local and regional publications and social media promotion.

·       Markets – plans to implement the following:

-       Initiatives to encourage new traders.

-       Promotion and delivery of additional markets, including antique markets, makers market and youth markets.

·       Street theatre/performers.

·       Business support initiatives.

·       Events (April-December 2025), indicative events include:

-       Summer Festival

-       Luna Cinema

-       Mountain Bike Skills

-       Children’s show

-       French market/Brocante/Vide Grenier and French Jazz evening

-       Twilight market

-       Street theatre

·       Product Development – regeneration pipeline of projects, introduce public realm improvements and work with landlords to set up Pop-up shops in empty retail unit/s.

Councillor Matt Bailey submitted the following statement:

‘I firstly want to thank all the Officers involved in the evaluation of ideas submitted in Appendix 5 and I am delighted that some of those ideas have filtered into the Action Plan. I look forward to seeing these come to fruition and see continued growth and development in Grantham Marketplace. A strong collaboration between Officers, Ward Councillors, local businesses and member of the public will ensure that we responsibly deliver the best value for money when deploying the remaining resources of the Future High Street Fund.

Secondly I would like to thank the leader Cllr Baxter for suggesting and arranging a meeting between Officers, Cllr Ley and myself to discuss this in advance of this meeting.

Todays focus should be the Action Plan itself Appendix 2, I do believe in previous meetings we have been distracted by the accuracy of the data. I myself am still very sceptical of the data in its accuracy and further analysis I have seen and shared with Officers and other Councillors does show gaps which are difficult to explain. It is important that we both measure our success but can also identify any weakness or concerns. Footfall volumes sounded like a logical way to do this. However without foundations of accuracy, the data becomes meaningless and I fear is now just a distraction to this Committee.

As for the Action  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63.

The Chairman closed the meeting at 12:24.