The Sunday Times has an article today on how the recession is depressing high streets across the UK.
For Wales, and Anglesey in particular, it does not make happy reading with three towns in the top ten of Britain’s worst-hit high streets. Holyhead is the worst, with 39% of all shops in the high street being empty and llangefni, the second major town on the island, having just under a quarter of its shops empty.
For Wales, and Anglesey in particular, it does not make happy reading with three towns in the top ten of Britain’s worst-hit high streets. Holyhead is the worst, with 39% of all shops in the high street being empty and llangefni, the second major town on the island, having just under a quarter of its shops empty.
- Holyhead (39%)
- Beckton, London (37%)
- Rochdale (29%)
- Blaydon, Tyne and Wear (28%)
- Rotherham (26%)
- Barry, South Glamorgan (24%)
- Kirkintilloch, Glasgow (24%)
- Loughborough (24%)
- Llangefni, North Wales (23%)
- Small Heath, Birmingham (23%)
So what can be done. A number of solutions are suggested, including
- Rates freeze - Retailers want Alistair Darling, the chancellor, to freeze a 5% increase in business rates due next month
- Upward rent review - Clauses that allow landlords to raise rents automatically should be scrapped, argues the British Retail Consortium
- Emergency powers - Councils want to be able to take over shops vacant for more than three months and turn them into galleries, community centres and other public spaces. They would pay a modest rent
- Vat cut - Councils want the Vat rate to be reduced from 15% to 5% for the refurbishment of empty premises to encourage shops to reopen
- Cheap parking - Councils should no longer regard parking as a way of generating revenue, instead stimulating trade by charging less, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) argues. Councils raised £1.6 billion in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available
- Planning - Small businesses want the government to give planners discretionary powers to veto out-of-town shopping centres if there is a risk they could weaken the high street
- Post offices - They should be kept open if they are profitable
Comments
You are the economic version of an ambulance chaser.
You also have the sheer gall to suggest "I told you so!".
Well, you didn't - you didn't see any of this coming, so why are you and your party pretending you did?
The Tory mantra is "do nothing". Why don't you go the whole hog and say nothing too?
It just shows how disconnected the Labour Party have become from the reality of the recession, and in a week where we will pass 2 million unemployed in the UK and 100,000 unemployed in Wales.
As for solutions, as this blog has pointed out on numerous occasions, it is the lack of credit that is dragging the economy down into further recession.
To deal with this, the Conservatives have called on the government to introduce a £50 billion loan guarantee scheme since last October and, of course, nothing has happened and, as a result of your Government’s incompetence and prevarication, more businesses are going bust and hundreds of thousands more people are being put on the dole. Certainly, if we were in power this would have been introduced immediately.
Of course, Labour have announced a whole range of ‘initiatives’ such as a Working Capital Scheme, a Guarantee Scheme for Asset-Backed Securities, a Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme, and recruitment subsidies. Guess what, not a single one of these schemes is properly active and, as a result, the whole economy is going down the pan.
So if you think that people losing their jobs and families facing financial hardship is something that is funny while, I don’t.
So why don’t you bugger off to another blog to comment as you are certainly not welcome here.
By Bob Sherwood
Published: March 16 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 16 2009 02:00
One in every 56 businesses is expected to collapse this year as the recession intensifies, a leading accounting firm has warned.
BDO Stoy Hayward says the rate of business failures will increase by 59 per cent by the end of this year to 36,000 companies, up from 22,600, or one in 87, in 2008.
As the UK economy contracts at its fastest rate since the second world war, the firm's Industry Watch report predicts that more company casualties will follow in 2010. It says 39,000 businesses, or one in 50, are likely to fail next year.
Though all sectors will be affected, construction and property are expected to feel the worst effects of the downturn. The report predicts that 3.2 per cent of companies in the sector, as many as 10,300 businesses, will go under.
Manufacturing will be next worst hit, with 2,300 companies, or about 2.3 per cent of the sector, to close.
Shay Bannon, head of business restructuring at BDO Stoy Hayward, said: "The deteriorating economy and expectations of a drawn-out recession has led to a downward revision in the UK outlook and has severely impacted the survival rate of UK businesses."
The report says the slowdown in consumer spending and corporate demand, coupled with shattered business confidence, has sharply pushed up the business failure rate this year. Investments by companies in their businesses are forecast to fall by 15.6 per cent in 2009 while consumer spending is likely to be down 1.8 per cent on last year.
Mr Bannon added: "Companies are tightening their belts and . . . the government is also increasing its initiatives to kick start the economy, and both should have an effect.
"However, because of the uncertainty among businesses on how long it will take for an upturn to emerge and lead to a more positive impact on their business, for some, surviving tomorrow will not be possible."
What does it take