More visitors to Christchurch

I saw a statistic this week that visitor numbers to our information centre had soared by over 20% in 2011. This mirrors what we have suspected for some months that general visitor numbers are well up year on year. Christchurch centres are beginning to respond to as you can see from the number of new business now operating in our High Street and the interest shown in our town by major supermarket organisations. In January I have a number of meetings planned with representatives of major organisations eager to find opportunities in Christchurch both in retail and commercial sectors. I find this really quite interesting when we are reading or hearing doom and gloom from our pundits and commentators. Further indication that Christchurch is growing and the market is responding to our policy of being a welcoming Council interested in growing our local economy by concentrating on new opportunities leading to building a vibrant local economy which means local jobs for local people.