From the Hereford Times

HEREFORD shoppers are spending less close to home, a survey revealed this week. (click here) The results reveal a six per cent drop in ‘convenience goods’ spending over the last five years. Residents in Leominster, Bromyard and Kington are going local with all three towns experiencing an increase in spending on convenience goods in the same fiveyear period.

While it is a worrying trend for Hereford, the city still retains the largest share of any catchment area – in 2012 the city’s shoppers bought 83 per cent of their convenience goods locally, despite the six per cent decrease, compared to 64 per cent in Kington.

The Core Insight report – available through Herefordshire Council’s website – does claim that better times lie ahead and that demand for convenience shopping in Hereford will be met by the Old Livestock Market (OLM) Development.

Note: This report seems to show that local spending is going up in the market towns while falling in Hereford. But it does look that for market town shoppers a third of the spend may still be non local while in Hereford about a fifth is spent outside the city. Not surprising? No reason is apparent for the fall in spending in Hereford.