The manager of Cheltenham's Regent Arcade has provided an upbeat assessment of the shopping centre's 'excellent' performance in the past year.

Although no footfall figures are currently available, centre manager Scott Lahive said: "It was a good year for sure with sales up for most. We witnessed excellent growth on 2021 and on comparable months (where there wasn't lockdown) 50% increases in some cases.

"We as an industry need to try and stop comparing against pre-pandemic levels of before 2019 as retailing is very different coming out of Covid and unlikely to get back to those times.

"The UK high street seems to have a single obsession with footfall and base everything on whether it's up or down rather than looking at pure turnover figures. Regardless of footfall, sales - for the majority of retailers - are higher than both 2019 and 2021.

"As we enter the new era of high street trading we need to look at other measures of success such as turnover, transaction/basket size, amount spent per product etc."

Mr Lahive said in 2023 were seeing retailers keener than they were before 2019 to take space and or relocation to better locations.

"Demand for space from leisure operators will remain strong and categories such as beauty and homewares will become more of a feature," he added.

As for the future, the Regent Arcade is planning on starting a few projects later this year, he said.

"At the south end of the shopping centre we hope to create some dining opportunities and have taken back some smaller units with a view of creating more public space and enhancing access to the 1st floor. On the 1st floor we plan to create one large new unit and on Regent Street we are hoping plans will be approved for a roof top bar/restaurant."