Newry and Mourne District Council

Newry City Centre Strategic Development Framework March 2004
APPENDIX 3 – Summary of Initial Consultation Responses (summer 2003)
A. Trader Questionnaires
1.0 Questionnaires were mailed to 540 traders in the Newry City area as part of the Newry City Centre Masterplan that
will be fed into the forthcoming Banbridge/Newry & Mourne Area Plan 2015. There was a response rate of 16% with 89
questionnaires being returned.
2.0 Questions 1-5 retrieved contact details from each of the 89 respondents from Newry.
2.1 Question 6 asked respondents ‘How long have you been trading in Newry’ Respondents were given three options to
choose from. 12% of respondents said ‘0-3 years’, 28% have been in Newry ‘4-10 years’ and the remaining 60% have
been trading in Newry ’11 or more years’. The following chart illustrates responses given:
How long have you been trading in Newry
Response
From Newry
(%)
From
elsewhere in
Newry &
Mourne (%)
From other
parts of NI
(%)
From the
Republic of
Ireland (%)
No response 3 6 13 17
1-10% 6 27 29 61
11-20% 5 18 49 10
21-30% 10 16 2 9
31-40% 17 22 3 1
41-50% 18 5 2 -
51-60% 14 4 1 2
61-70% 11 2 - -
71-80% 7 - - -
81-90% 6 - 1 -
28%
60%
12%
0-3 yrs
4-10 yrs
11yrs +
2.2 The next question asked traders to estimate what percentage of trade comes from people living in Newry, people living
in other parts of Northern Ireland, people living elsewhere in Newry & Mourne and people from the Republic of Ireland.
3% of respondents get between 91-100% of their trade from people living in Newry. A significant number of businesses
draw trade from outside the city as would be expected. The following table highlights all responses given. Those
highlighted in bold indicate most frequent responses.
91-100% 3 - - -
To summarise:
o 97% of respondents get trade from people living in Newry
o 94% of traders get trade from people who reside elsewhere in Newry& Mourne
o 87% get trade from people living in other parts of Northern Ireland
o A significant 83% of Newry traders get trade from the Republic of Ireland
2.3 Question 8 presented respondents with a range of issues that may cause difficulties for their business. They were
asked to rate them from 1 (not serious at all) to 5 (very serious).
Ferguson McIlveen in association with Mentor and Scott Wilson Page No. 39