Shoppers remain hesitant to visit Denbighshire’s high streets, agreed councillors, despite evidence people are returning to shops.

Denbighshire council’s partnerships scrutiny committee met to consider a report detailing the health of businesses and high streets post COVID.

The report – Post Covid Recovery in Town Centre and National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) – took a snapshot of footfall, the number of empty shops and business rates in the county.

The report acknowledged the ‘harsh’ impact of the pandemic but optimistically predicted that there were signs of a revival, stating ‘town centres in Denbighshire will continue to be used at the same level as before the start of the pandemic in the years to come’.

Officers also reminded councillors that the number of businesses paying rates had increased from 4,361 in April 2020 to 4,455 in September 2021.

But the number of empty businesses in Denbighshire had also increased from 267 in April 2020 to 294 in September 2021. The empty properties represent 6.7 per cent of the 4,455 properties paying rates.

Cllr Huw Hilditch-Roberts said he ran two post offices in Ruthin and Denbigh and that times were still tough.

“Just to give you a flavour of one of my post offices, before COVID the footfall was 2,300 people a week. We are now having about 1,200 a week, and it has taken a long time to get back up to that level,” he said.

“My income is severely down. We are still suffering because of the demographics of the area. For example, in Ruthin old people are still not confident coming out in the same way as they did pre-COVID. In Denbigh my footfall was 1,800 a week and is down to about 750, and it is having a significant impact on income, so I just want to be clear: whatever your source of information and confidence you are gaining from town centres being back, they may be in certain areas, but in the two towns of Ruthin and Denbigh, it certainly isn’t.”

He added: “In my two post offices, I sell £3m worth of travel money every year, and I haven’t sold in the last 12 months over 30. I find it really hard sitting here and everybody thinking it is rosy when the reality is I’ve had to let two members of staff go. I don’t think it (the part of the report) is a true reflection.”

Perhaps as expected, the report revealed that footfall had fallen in 2020 across Corwen, Denbigh, Llangollen, Prestatyn, Rhuddlan, Rhyl, Ruthin and St Asaph at the onset of the pandemic.

Total footfall for the eight towns dropped from 749,981 in the first quarter of 2020 to 327,072 in the spring lockdown. As restrictions were relaxed in the summer months, the total number of people visiting shops and businesses jumped to 800,026 but fell again to 543,992 when the winter hit and further restrictions were imposed.

The number of people visiting Rhyl in the May, June and July of 2021 had also fallen by 39 per cent compared to the same period in 2016.

Councillors discussed several initiatives introduced by Denbighshire to help struggling businesses. One initiative – Pop-up Shops – will see a trial in Rhyl where empty shops will be used as a start-up venue for businesses. Another project – ‘Smart window dressing’ – will see local produce placed in the windows of empty shops where customers can scan products with their phone and be directed to websites.

Denbighshire will look at applying for three pots of funding, each at a maximum of £20m, to regenerate town centres through the Government’s levelling up fund.

The council will also offer a digital grant scheme to help businesses develop and modernise.