Tag Archives: high streets

Mark Valladares

17 January 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Fri 17th January 2020 - 11:52 pm
  • Lib Dems oppose Johnson’s Parliamentary agenda
  • Fall in retail sales demands a radical rethink
  • PM should seek to bring the country together

Lib Dems oppose Johnson’s Parliamentary agenda

The Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to the Queen’s Speech for debate on Monday 19 January. The amendment details the key reasons why Liberal Democrat MPs will oppose Boris Johnson’s agenda for government, including:

  • failure to introduce ambitious plans to tackle the climate emergency;
  • failure to set out measures to tackle poverty and inequality;
  • failure to protect human rights or to strengthen the voice of citizens.

The amendment also urges Government to introduce a system of proportional representation. …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Valladares

11-12 January 2020 – the weekend’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 12th January 2020 - 10:00 pm
  • Govt must back Lib Dem bill for family reunion rights for child refugees
  • Lib Dems demand statement on arrest of British ambassador to Iran
  • Lib Dems demand reform to protect High Street retailers

Govt must back Lib Dem bill for family reunion rights for child refugees

Responding to an NGO report calling for child refugees to be given the right to sponsor close family members to join them, the Liberal Democrats have urged the Government to support their bill that would do just that.

Without My Family, a report published today by Amnesty International, the Refugee Council and Save the Children, criticises the …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Valladares

7 March 2019 – yesterday’s press releases (part 2)

By Mark Valladares | Fri 8th March 2019 - 7:28 pm

And now, as promised, the rest of the press releases…

  • Figures highlight extremely difficult time for high streets
  • Swinson: Employers must be held to account over gender pay gap
  • Chancellor must end the freeze on benefits and tax credits
  • Davey: Strip Home Office of immigration powers

Figures highlight extremely difficult time for high streets

Responding as the BDO High Streets Tracker reveals that sales declined by 3.7%, the worst February for lifestyle in-store sales since November 2008, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable said:

Our high streets are clearly going through an extremely difficult time, thanks to a combination of long-term structural challenges and the damaging

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , and | Leave a comment
Mark Valladares

21 February 2019 – yesterday’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Fri 22nd February 2019 - 11:06 pm

Apologies to all for last night’s failure to file. It didn’t mean that there weren’t any, more that I was engaged in a bout of constitution wrangling and lost track of time. So, without further ado…

Cable: Govt must level the playing field between the high street and online

Responding to the report by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee calling on the Government to consider the options of an online sales tax and reforms to business rates, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable said:

While our high streets are going through an extremely difficult time, with the right action from

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , and | Leave a comment
Kirsten Johnson

Towards a level playing field between the high street and online

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 21st February 2019 - 8:00 am

I welcome the report by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, High Streets and Town Centres in 2030, which calls on the Government to consider the options of an online sales tax and reforms to business rates.

It states:

We believe that high streets and town centres can survive, and thrive, by 2030 if they adapt. Our vision is for activity-based community gathering places where retail is a smaller part of a wider range of uses and activities and where green space, leisure, arts and culture and health and social care services combine with housing to create a space based on social and community interactions.

I spoke at a local business breakfast in Barnstaple recently. I was asked, “How can we revive the high street with online retailers undercutting our businesses?”  and “How can we make it fairer for high street businesses?” Local business owners wanted to know more about our policy to reform business rates – I told them about our proposal to abolish business rates and replace them with a Commercial Landowner Levy. But that wasn’t enough for them – they wanted to know about online sales tax and how we could level the playing field.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 60 Comments
David Thorpe

The decline of the high street: a liberal solution

By David Thorpe | Mon 11th June 2018 - 8:11 am

The death of the great British high street is an event rarely out of the popular press, and it has been so for a decade.

Mary Portas was appointed in a hail of publicity by David Cameron to find ways to save the high street as far back as 2011, nothing came of that and the problem has become much worse since the increase in business rates introduced last year, the creation of the national living wage and the dent to consumer sentiment caused by the UK’s vote to leave the European Union.

Now I quite like the national living wage announced …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 62 Comments
Mark Blackburn

Jessops – is administration a euphemism for obliteration?

By Mark Blackburn | Fri 11th January 2013 - 1:12 pm

Sadly, yesterday another retailer went into administration, this time Jessops, the high street camera chain. For the time being it continues to trade but the jobs of its 2000 employees in 200 stores are under threat. Surprisingly, Christmas can be a bad time for retailers – rents are due on Christmas Day and if the expected bumper sales don’t materialise, the money may not be there to pay them.

Obviously it’s not going to get any easier for ‘bricks and mortar’ store chains with the continuing increase in online sales, but there’s a more fundamental problem – apart from the massive …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 20 Comments
Advert



Recent Comments

  • Peter Martin
    @ Joe, "it is unlikely that further macroeconomic fiscal stimulus will be required at this time" For once we agree on something! I'd even sugge...
  • Peter Martin
    @ Michael, I raised the point initially to show that the effect of talking to voters on the doorstep was somewhat overrated. The 2017 swing in Lancaster and ...
  • Alex Macfie
    Marco: "You can’t instruct voters what to do." Indeed (and this is something I've been saying on here recently in another context). And actually, electoral hi...
  • Michael BG
    Peter Martin, Thank you. I attended Lancaster University and so lived in both constituencies. With a majority of only 1265 and only gaining the seat in 20...
  • Jeff
    [Dominic Cummings] claim that PM Boris Johnson never had any intention of honouring the Northern Ireland Protocol he negotiated has—in the light of subsequ...