Christmas shoppers flock to Shrewsbury for busiest week since 2019

Shrewsbury town centre recorded its highest weekly footfall since Christmas 2019 in the week beginning Monday the 15th of December, with 262,937 visits to the town centre counted throughout the week, according to Shrewsbury BID’s footfall cameras on Pride Hill and High Street.

Visitor numbers on Saturday the 20th also broke the record for highest footfall recorded on any single day in the town centre since the COVID pandemic.

These figures indicate the busiest trading week since the last Christmas before COVID in 2019, suggesting the overall attraction of the town centre continues to grow – boosted by a national reputation as ‘Britain’s Best High Street’ (The Telegraph, 2024 & 2025) and ‘Britain’s Most Perfect Market Town’ (The Telegraph, 2025).

New annual spend data from Beauclair shows that £132,397,505 was spent in Shrewsbury town centre between December 2024 and November 2025, based on offline debit card transactions.

Food & Drink remains the largest sector by spend, accounting for £46.5 million of the annual figure, followed by Fashion (£23.6 million), Health & Beauty (£18.3 million), Grocery (£17.6 million) and General Retail (£9.9 million). Together, these sectors highlight the town centre’s important role as a place for everyday needs as well as leisure and social outings.

Seb Slater, Executive Director at Shrewsbury BID, said:

“Saturday the 20th of December was the busiest single day of footfall since Christmas 2019, which is a significant moment for the town centre. It shows that more people are choosing to come into town at key times of the year, particularly to enjoy the atmosphere and the experience of getting out and about during the festive period.

"We know from speaking with businesses that their experiences have varied and that higher footfall does not automatically translate into higher sales for everyone. However, the data we gather from third party, independent sources does suggest that the town centre is succeeding in attracting visitors, and outperforming the British benchmark for retail performance, especially during the festive period."