ICM opinion poll shows clear majority support for the Canal Corridor proposals 54% of Lancaster residents say they support Centros Miller’s proposals to redevelop the Canal Corridor site in Lancaster city centre – with only 12% saying they oppose the scheme, 14% undecided and 19% with no opinion. This is the main result of an independent opinion poll of a representative cross-section of Lancaster and Morecambe residents by the highly-respected national opinion-polling organisation, ICM and means that for every two people against the proposals there are nine in favour of them. Around 60% of the local population are aware of the content of the proposals and the level of support rises to 61% in this group, showing that the more people know about the development, the more they support it. 50% of local people also thought the development will make Lancaster a better city. Only 8% think it would make the city worse, with 21% thinking there will be no difference and 20% having no opinion. As well as establishing these highly-authoritative measures of support for the development proposals, people were asked where else (other than Lancaster) that they went for non-food shopping (clothes, footwear, gifts and small household goods), how frequently they travelled elsewhere and what proportion of their expenditure on clothes and footwear they spent in those destinations. 64% said they travelled regularly to Preston to shop (43% of whom travel at least monthly or more frequently). Regular visits to other shopping centres also included: Kendal (53%); Manchester (47%); Blackpool (28%); and Carlisle (15%). From the information given, the ICM survey established that an average of 43% of local people’s expenditure on clothes and footwear is currently being spent in these other competing shopping destinations. David Lewis, associate director of Centros Miller, said: “This survey confirms what we’ve always believed: a clear majority of local people are keen to see the Canal Corridor site redeveloped to extend Lancaster’s city centre and provide the range of shopping and other facilities that the city urgently needs in order to compete with other regional centres. “It also shows that the lack of an attractive range of fashion shopping in the city is currently driving people elsewhere in their thousands. If that is allowed to continue, and with competing developments also adding to the attractions of places like Preston and Blackpool, this significant drain of money from Lancaster will have a particularly detrimental impact on all the smaller and independent retailers in Lancaster, who tend to feed off the shoppers drawn in by the big name stores. “By providing a department store – Debenhams – and a wide range of other new shopping as well as cultural and other facilities, we aim to build the city’s shopping attraction to the point where local people will have little reason to travel elsewhere. That will produce huge benefits by keeping tens of millions of pounds of local retail spending from leaking out of the city, sustaining many more local jobs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from people frequently travelling long distances to shop elsewhere.” Centros Miller commissioned the opinion poll as a part of its extensive public consultation programme on its development proposals – which has included numerous meetings with the public and members of local interest groups. ICM conducted the telephone survey of 1,000 local people living within the Lancaster City Council boundaries from Friday 13th April to Wednesday 18th April. A copy of ICM’s report will be published in Centros Miller’s full consultation report, which will be submitted to Lancaster City Council as part of the planning application to be made a few weeks time. 27th April 2007 |
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