The leader of the City Council, Dimitri Batrouni, is touting his recent meeting with Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham as he sought to learn from their experience and whether it will translate across to Newport. Burnham pointed to Stockport where there is a £2 billion regeneration fund aimed at building homes and heritage restoration.
“The retail footprint of these places will not be as big in the future as it was in the past… or indeed the employment footprint in the heart of the place may not be as big”, said Mr Burnham, who added “some people don’t like that idea”.
A Centre for Cities report recently issued confirms what we all know that Newport still has a high vacant shop rate, the highest in the UK of the cities surveyed at 19 per cent (albeit this is a reduction from 33 per cent in 2019). The report tellingly confirms a more important factor that Newport has too many shops. Newport has the highest shop rate per 1,000 people in its catchment at 2.9 compared to just 0.8 in London.
Newport city centre was historically scaled for a larger population of daily shoppers — when department stores (e.g. John Frost Square), arcades, and high street chains thrived.
The rise of out-of-town retail parks (like Newport Retail Park and Cribbs Causeway) and online shopping has hollowed out demand.
Even with Friars Walk’s mixed success, surrounding areas haven’t seen strong spillover. Footfall is concentrated in a few zones: Friars Walk, Kingsway Centre, the Market quarter, and key food/takeaway locations. Peripheral shopping streets including Commercial Street see little consistent traffic.
There have been many good initiatives from the Council to encourage development and footfall and there is now evidence of a growing independent sector but the fact remains the sprawling retail core is too big. A radical plan is needed to bring housing not HMO’s into the heart of the city centre and to reclassify a whole area in Commercial Street for residential development.
The Placemaking Plan agreed by the Council identifies some of the key issues and some of the areas of potential development.
The Welsh Government’s “Transforming Towns” framework supports compact, mixed-use town centres.
The UK government’s High Streets Task Force encourages reducing and repurposing excess retail space into:
Housing (especially upper floors)
Co-working spaces
Health and community hubs
Arts/culture/heritage renovations
WHAT COULD NEWPORT DO?
Strategy | Benefits |
Consolidate the core | Shrinks retail area to zones with viable footfall, increasing occupancy and reducing perception of decline. |
Repurpose empty units | Housing, creative space, education hubs (e.g. USW Newport expansion) can revive dead zones. |
Strengthen anchor attractions | Focus investment around the Market, Riverfront Theatre, and Friars Walk to pull people into a tighter footprint. |
Invest in placemaking | Green spaces, better lighting, and cultural events can reactivate unused spaces even without retail. |
The City Council needs to consider re-shaping the city centre and making some tough decisions about the future of some buildings. The city centre must be a place to live and work 24/7. At the moment it is not sufficiently safe and the recent spate of city centre burglaries has highlighted this.
Other points. Why is there no Rodney Parade museum celebrating Newport’s sporting history? Or a place for Chartism or the Newport Ship?
I would also add the College Campus must be progressed as soon as possible alongside the leisure centre. The City has been badly let down by the University and its promises of investment, losing thousands of students and the economy that goes with them.
There also must be a better way of connecting the main public transport hubs in the city and bringing more buses into the city centre core. It is madness that there is not a neat accessible transport link between the city’s bus and railway stationsThere will also be a need to incentivise people to come back into the city centre as the offer improves including free transport and parking initiatives.