Stirling City Centre Business Survey
Stirling Council recently undertook a survey of city centre businesses through the City Centre Management Initiative to inform a City Centre Health Check that will form the baseline for a range of economic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Stirling's City Centre .
Key findings from the survey included:
- The most popular reasons given for locating in Stirling City Centre were the catchment area and population (34%), followed by the nature of business requires location (29%) and a gap/ niche market (28%).
- Half of businesses that responded stated that their business performance had improved in the past year whilst 1 in 5 had declined. A further 3 in 10 stated no change.
- Over the next year a large majority (71%) of businesses anticipated their business would see no change in growth whilst almost 1 in 5 (14 businesses) anticipated expansion in Stirling City Centre. A further 1 in 5 businesses stated they anticipated growth outwith Stirling. Only four anticipated expanding both within and outwith Stirling.
- Cleanliness of the city centre and parking were the main issues commented on by businesses.
- The majority of respondents rated the following parking issues either adequate or good: parking space provision, number and location of car parks, safety of car parks and signage to car parks. However significant numbers also stated the following were poor: space provision (35%), number of car parks (30%) and location of car parks (27%).
- The price of parking was the biggest issue with 62% of respondents rating this as poor.
- Almost two-thirds of businesses thought that the park and ride provision was either adequate (32%) or good (32%).
- Rail transport provision was rated highly by businesses with 4 out of 5 either stating it was adequate (32%) or good (51%). Almost three-quarters rated bus and road provision as either adequate or good.
- Overall accessibility into Stirling City Centre was rated as adequate by a slim majority of respondents whilst a quarter rated it as good. However around 1 in 6 (17%) thought it was poor.
- Parking issues and congestion were the main accessibility issues for businesses in Stirling City Centre.
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