COUNCILLORS have agreed that spending nearly £3,000 on footfall counters to show many people enter Wellington town centre would be “difficult to justify” to local taxpayers.

Wellington has had three footfall sensors located in Fore Street outside Squirrel Court, near MJC Financial in South Street and near the Wellington Weekly News offices in High Street.

They were originally installed by the former Somerset West and Taunton District Council to monitor the effectiveness of initiatives taken to encourage people back to the High Street following a downturn in visitor numbers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The cost was originally funded by the Government’s Welcome Back Scheme.

But Somerset Council has now reviewed the necessity for continuing the use of these footfall counters and asked Wellington Town Council if it would be interested in renewing the contract with Proximity Future Ltd from January 2025 – at a cost of £2,844.

The idea was met with a united “thumbs down” from members of the town council’s economic development committee on September 11 with a report stating that “external funding is no longer available to fund the contract for the sensors.”

The Mayor, Cllr Janet Lloyd, said: “They are very useful and show hot spots in the town, but I am not sure how we can spend over £2,500 of council taxpayers’ money just on something which counts how many people come into the town. They are useful, but I don’t think we can go on with this.”

Cllr John Thorne said: “It’s difficult to justify spending nearly £3,000 on this and what do we actually get out of them? I was told that businesses could benefit from them, so can’t we just take the data gained from the footfall counters so far and let businesses know that information taken from over the past few years.”

Finances at Wellington Town Council will be stretched to the limit with the authority taking on a raft of new services from the cash-strapped Somerset Council.

And Cllr Mark Lithgow added: “I think I’d dig my heels in the ground and kick-off if we went along with this. The footfall counters are nice things to have, but I don’t think we really need them.

“I think shops probably already know what days they are busy and what days they aren’t without us having to tell them.”

Committee chairman, Cllr Chris Booth, said: “I think there is a clear view coming through about this. I’m happy to propose that we don’t proceed with these, but put together a final report about the data.”

And Cllr Mike McGuffie quipped: “If we don’t have the actual footfall counters themselves, we could just stand in the street and count the people ourselves!”

Councillors were also told that Somerset Council, which is in the midst of a financial emergency, would not be in a position to pay for an engineer to go out and resolve any maintenance issues with the footfall counters. So that would have been another cost passed onto the town council had councillors opted to renew the contract.