WINCHESTER City Centre's footfall over the last year has been relatively high when compared to the national picture.

According to Springboard, the national data portal, the city retained 21 per cent more footfall than similar places.

In December, it saw 6 per cent more footfall than the average.

Cllr Paula Ferguson believes this is because the city council built on an already "established brand".

"We delivered new marketing campaigns via our visitor and resident social media channels, visitwinchester.co.uk and christmasinwinchester.co.uk, to attract visitors and residents to our high streets, local shops and eateries.

"We also created a dedicated Rediscover Christmas in Winchester film which captured the key highlights from across the district and focused specifically on independent businesses and local gift ideas.

"We promoted the Nutcracker Trail, delivered by the BID which we also digitalised to help increase uptake sustainably. During the national restrictions in November the team launched the support local/shop online campaign to support non-essential retailers that were forced to close.

"The main campaign pages on visitwinchester.co.uk for support local shops online featured separate pages for the city and each market town.

"We deployed a dedicated resource to proactively source and co-ordinate content from each market town on local shops and their offer. Part of this campaign included featuring food and beverage outlets that were offering takeaways and deliveries across the district."

Using social media over the Christmas period, the council's posts were seen by 6,100 people on Facebook and Instagram.

Its separate eight-day Facebook ad campaign was seen by 13,000.

On Twitter, its content was viewed by 6,700; its Christmas in Winchester film was seen more than 32,000 times; and print marketing reached 23,000.

Cllr Ferguson continued: "The impact of the national restrictions in November led to a downturn in footfall in the city of 33 per cent in relation to the previous month.

"As a comparator example, the city has retained 14 per cent more of its footfall year to date and 7 per cent more than the previous month compared with Salisbury, a similar cathedral city destination.

"We will continue to use social media as an effective and ongoing route to market. Our pro-active engagement with market towns in sourcing content has been specifically effective in attracting new audiences, particularly residents and raising their profile within our activities.

"We will continue this approach along with the creation of thematic films as a method to raise awareness and share key messages, products and services.

"Businesses would benefit from further support regarding their on-line presence, in response to the current national restrictions and ongoing changing consumer buying habits. We are currently considering how best to do this.”