THE manager of Newport Business Improvement District (BID) has said Newport needs to find “unique” businesses to attract more people into the city centre. 

Kevin Ward, the manager of the Newport BID, spoke to the Argus after statistics from the a retail data firm highlighted Newport as among the worst performing retail centres in the UK, and the worst performing city.

The statistics, collected by the Local Data Company – which compared vacancy rates in city and town centres across England, Scotland and Wales – ranked Newport third worst on the list for occupancy rates and the number of units closing. 

Only Burslem, in Stoke on Trent, and Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, were worse.

Mr Ward said the data is not an accurate representation of Newport as a whole though, just the city centre. 

He also said: “It looks at places such as shops, bars, restaurants and pubs, but it wouldn’t involve office space and businesses such as banks.” 

There are a fair number of businesses in that occupancy rate, he added.

Mr Ward also said he believes that Newport is “not much different” to any other city centre in terms of its high street. 

However, he did say the report cannot be ignored and “more does need to be done” to improve the city centre.

“As Newport is in the centre of two large cities with affluent shopping districts it is a challenge here for us,” he added

“What we have to do is find interesting, new, unique and independent retailers or other places of interest to draw people in to our city.”