Chorlton's Economy
The evidence below is based on the two wards of Chorlton and Chorlton Park and draws from a range of different sources. Unless data is provided for both wards separately, the name “Chorlton” is used to cover both wards.
Employment
Chorlton has a higher proportion of its local residents working in higher wage jobs such as Information Communication, Financial Insurance etc, Professional Scientific, Health and Education than both Manchester and England. In contrast, Chorlton has fewer people working in Retail/Wholesale and Transport & Accommodation industries.
Chorlton has a high proportion of local residents working in higher wage Managerial, Professional and Technical roles than Manchester and England, and a smaller proportion in Care, Leisure & Sales roles.
Benefit Claimants
Chorlton has low levels of benefits dependency compared to the rest of Manchester: there were 910 residents claiming benefits in Dec 2021. The average across the two wards was 4.2% compared to a Manchester average of 6.8% and a GB figure of 4.5%.
Deprivation
Looking at the Index of Multiple Deprivation for England which provides every part of the country with a score on a scale of 1-10 against a series of domains of deprivation (eg income, employment etc and an overall score). Chorlton’s overall mean score is 4.5 whereas Manchester’s of 2.5. This means that Chorlton is less deprived than Manchester overall, but is still relatively deprived compared to the rest of the country.
Chorlton has relatively higher levels of deprivation around Health (E), Crime (F), Living Environment and Income Affecting Older People (J). This contrasts with relatively low levels of deprivation on Education (D), Barriers To Housing (G) and Income Deprivation Affecting Children (I).
Housing
Home Ownership
Chorlton has higher levels of home ownership than Manchester but somewhat lower than the national average for England. Both Chorlton and Manchester have much higher levels of private renting than England. Chorlton social rented sector matches the England average.
House Prices
House prices have risen considerably in Chorlton since 1995, almost matching growth in England & Wales, while outstripping growth in the rest of Manchester.
Retail
Footfall
In 2018, as part of the Vital and Viable Chorlton project, a footfall counter was installed near the pedestrian crossing, in front of Chorlton Precinct. Monthly figures were processed by retail analysts, Springboard. The impact of the pandemic and its lockdowns can be plainly seen in the red and blue lines for 2020 and 2021, but there is an underlying downward trend in high street footfall. While December 2021 saw an increase of 11% (10,115 people) on 2020, the 2021 figure also represents 25% and 26% decreases on 2019 and 2018 respectively.
Impact of the Pandemic
Data provided by the Financial Times splits Chorlton ‘s retail into three areas (Middle layer Super Output Areas): Chorlton North, Chorlton South and Beech Road/Meadows. Taking an average of the three areas:
- Local, in-person sales since March 2020 were down by 7.7%.
- Businesses saw a 141.5% increase in online sales, almost entirely driven by a surge in food and drink sales. Taken together, this means a total rise of 3.6%.
- In 2019, across the three areas, an average of 54% of sales came from customers living less than two miles away. Since March 2020, total spend by this group has increased by 4.4%.