A Cheshire East councillor has challenged the council's claims that footfall is increasing in the borough's towns arguing the data its figures are based on isn't reliable.

Speaking at yesterday's (Monday) meeting of the corporate and governance scrutiny committee, Sandbach councillor Nicola Cook (Ind) questioned the council's figures, which stated footfall in town centres was up by five cent on the same time last year.

She said Cheshire East had said the footfall data was generated by mobile phone activations.

But in commuter towns like Sandbach, where traffic is static for long periods of time and there could be three mobile phones in one car, she didn't consider that to be an accurate way of recording footfall.

"The businesses are telling us that footfall is down, residents are telling us that footfall is down," said Cllr Cook.

"But this metric is telling us that footfall is up.

"We need to get a figure that's correct because actually, if the reality is that the footfall isn't up, then we need to respond to that as a council.

"It's potentially diverting our effort around and away from a situation that actually feels really serious."

Council leader Nick Mannion (Macclesfield, Lab) said he understood mobile phone mast data had been used both by central government and local government for some years to determine footfall.

"It's not ideal, it's a proxy indicator," he said.

Cllr Cook replied the council paid for the data.

"If the metric's telling us a story that's not correct, what's the point in the metric?" she asked.

Cllr Mannion asked if officers could look at the data and how it was assessed.

He added: "I would say, our town centres have changed. We used to go to our town centre for our weekly shopping. We don't largely now.

"We go to our town centres for many other reasons and at different times of the day – you can see that by the healthy number of licence applications there are across Cheshire East for town centre locations.

"Our town centres are changing. What we need to do is to ensure they become welcoming places, and people visit them, stay there, and spend their money on local businesses."

Cllr Heather Seddon (Congleton, Lab) said: "I can believe that the [footfall]] numbers are increasing.

"I think in Congleton it's absolutely thriving.

"So, I think you've got that transition, perhaps from smaller retail shops into the cafe culture, and I think that might be what you're seeing."