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Town Centre Visitor Survey 2004
During January and February 2004, North Hertfordshire District Council carried out a town centre visitor survey of the four main towns in the District: Hitchin, Letchworth Garden City, Baldock and Royston. The survey involved a postal questionnaire to a sample of households within the four towns’ catchments areas.
The catchment areas for each town centre were based on ten minute drive times from the centre of each town. The number of households within each catchment area were as follows: Hitchin – 36,617; Letchworth Garden City – 35,237; Baldock – 26,483; Royston – 8,315. This excluded households which were within the catchment area but outside of the District, as no information was available on addresses of these properties.
Because of the close proximity of Hitchin, Letchworth Garden City, and Baldock, there was a high level of overlap between the three catchment areas. Some households were in two or even all three catchment areas. Therefore, there were only 48,575 households across the four catchments areas, but because of overlapping and households being in more than one catchment area, the total for the four catchment areas was 106,652.
In balancing the cost of the exercise with the wish to get as high a level of response as possible, it was decided to send out approximately 8000 questionnaires across the District. Therefore, a 7.5% sample was taken of each of the four catchment areas. This was done on a random basis. The number of questionnaires sent out in each of the catchment areas was as follows: Hitchin – 2746; Letchworth Garden City – 2642; Baldock – 1986; Royston – 623. In total, 17.6% of all households in the catchment areas received a questionnaire of some sort.
Because of the overlapping between catchment areas, the sample was checked to ensure that any household which was in more than one catchment area did not receive a questionnaire for two different town centres.
The survey was looking at users of the town centres. Visitors to each of the town centres did not just comes from the towns themselves, but from the other towns within the District, and surrounding villages. Therefore, some residents of Letchworth Garden City received a questionnaire asking about their views on Hitchin town centre, and vice versa. With regard to Hitchin for example, if the Council had only taken a sample of residents of Hitchin, it would not have been a representative sample of people visiting the town. The results of the survey showed that there is a significant level of movement between the towns. Royston was the exception to this because of its relative isolation, in relation to the other towns in the District.
The questionnaire was split into sections dealing with: details of when and how often the centre was visited; how people got there; questions about the market (except Letchworth Garden City); questions about shopping; and general questions about the town centres.
The number of responses in each of the catchment areas was as follows: Hitchin – 768 (28%); Letchworth Garden City – 731 (28%); Baldock – 463 (23%); Royston – 168 (27%).
The results of the survey have been summarised in the Town Centre and Retail Study 2004, which has been produced for the Council by consultants. A copy of the relevant section of the study is attached below. Full details of the results of the survey will be in local libraries shortly.
Town Centre & Retail Study Visitor Survey Chapter 
