Bank Holiday Blues

Retail sector only slowly improving

I had a fee paying job to perform in South Shields this morning and I was delighted to see so many retailers open for business in King Street, the market was busy, and shoppers had thronged to the town. Considering that most major retailers have reported poor year on year like for like growth figures recently
it was good to see that they were prepared to try and attract business on a Bank Holiday. However, it was not a completely rosy picture, our town centre like many others is a “clone” with so many national chains operating there cheek by jowel with a few local “independent” companies. These smaller independents are what gives some town centres that little extra added value, a niche market for those that specialise. Their availability to customers on Bank Holidays is only slowly improving.

Yet one couldn’t buy any saveloys at Dicksons today, nor could you stock up with printing cartridges at GHI Computers. It was even worse in Morpeth this afternoon when I took my children to see a different place. The Northumberland market town had been “invaded” by tourists, Carlisle Park was packed full, rowing boats were in full use on the river, the streets were thronged with expectant shoppers, in this town renowned for it’s “niche” independent traders. I love the cheese shop opposite the clock tower, but along with about 70% of other retailers it was closed, so no cheese for Mrs. Curly today!

With the British economy facing an uncertain future over the coming year it was disappointing to see so many businesses unprepared to take money on a day when footfall would have been huge! I know after spending thirty years in retail and being used to working on Bank Holidays that it is not always a popular decision to open for business, costs rise as premium payments are made to staff and extra days off in lieu have to be arranged, but the benefits have always outweighed the costs.

The DIY sheds may have led the way in changing our shopping and Bank Holiday habits but it seems to me that others are still a little slow to follow.

Do you prefer to see the shops open, in general, on Bank Holidays, or do you prefer to see your towns empty and shuttered?

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Tesco Value Staff

It’s time to exercise my rights

Tesco Value Staff - well not too much if they happen to be sub-contracted in Malaysia at around 8p per hour!

I suppose I ought to be shocked that Britain’s favourite grocer (who are about to embark on transforming the face of South Tyneside) should be profiting so greatly at the expense of it’s staff in the far eastern markets.

“Doing business in some overseas markets can be challenging as local laws and customs sometimes appear to conflict with the high expectations we have here in the UK and elsewhere in the international community”

said a Tesco spokesperson.

No doubt it is, no doubt it is, but is it too difficult to control the recruitment process and cut out the middle men making a nice profit for themselves? You don’t seem to have the same problems at your Simonside store in South Shields!

The libertarian view would say that these Malaysian workers should simply leave and seek employment elsewhere, I take it they have a reasonably free labour market where they can sell their skills to the highest bidder.

Similarly, I can take my ethical free market views and transform them into direct consumer activity, therefore whilst and during the period that I consider Tesco to be enjoying rather larger than normal profits, I will shop at some other supermarket of my choice - there are others in South Shields and Jarrow, you know.

South Tyneside Homes - new partnerships

The start of something big

South Tyneside Homes, the beleaguered ALMO  charged with achieving a “Decent Homes Standard” for the tenants of South Tyneside have entered into partnerships with three construction partners in the private sector. Ostensibly to puch the drive towards achieving the goal of a two star audit attracting additional much needed government funding.

Is this some sort of public admission that they just aren’t “getting there”?

Lol Bliar

Based upon an original concept as developed by Pickled Politics and Devil’s Kitchen

What a brilliant idea, I think someone should set up a dedicated website!

Competition time

Spot the difference

Yes it’s competition time, that time of year when you will move heaven and earth to reverse the decision of the local education authority about which school “young Johnny” has been allocated a place at. It seems that a number of people who received news yesterday or today are not best pleased with the news and wish to speak to David Potts to sort out a new or better arrangement.

Trouble is, they are all ringing the Corner Shop for some remote reason - Pottsy doesn’t live here, he only shops here!

So, see if you can spot the difference, one is a smart, suave, sophisticated, erudite, and over opinionated local blogger from South Shields (who doesn’t take himself too seriously), and the other is a Cleadon Village and East Boldon Conservative councillor!

Yes, you can find my mobile number on the Contact page, but if you want to get in touch with Cllr. Potts about that school place don’t ring me, I’m afraid I cannot help.

You can contact him on 0191 519 2053

or email him cllr.david.potts@southtyneside.gov.uk

Sporting sanctions against Zimbabwe

Brown favours banning Zimbabwe

I’ve just been listening to Victoria Derbyshire on BBC Radio 5 Live, where she is about to start a debate about the pros and cons of Gordon Brown’s ideas about banning sports personalities from Zimbabwe from competing in the UK. This would, of course, prevent the Zimbabwe cricket team from touring here, as well as depriving Manchester City of the services of Benjani.

Robert Mugabe’s regime is reviled, he has no time for real democracy, Morgan Tsvangerai would attest to that from a hospital bed, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change has suffered physically over the course of years fighting for truth, honesty, justice and democracy in Zimbabwe. Mugabe’s Zanu PF machine has impoverished the people of Zimbabwe in a manner not thought possible by outsiders and neighbours, the economy has been destroyed, inflation is at levels that are now difficult to measure accurately, and since forcibly taking over the farmlands production has dropped far below the levels required to feed their own people.

So I have no problem in breaking sporting ties with such a horrid regime, none at all. Why should we give them any sort of legitimacy?

I do have a problem with Brown’s double standards though.

Just last week, South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary David Miliband was rejecting calls to boycott the Olympics in Beijing, China. The communist dictatorship there has been every bit as heinous as Mugabe’s crowd, it cares little for the democratic rights of people, and is not averse to supplying arms and succour to those bent on genocide in Darfur.

China has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, after it relaxed it’s opposition to foreign investment, and therein lies the key ingredient to this double standard. In comparison to China, there is very little money and trade to lose with Zimbabwe!

Chris Rodrigues  has a hrd hitting article on the same subject - here

It simply isn’t cricket Gordon.

February review

Slight downturn in readership

Having become the victim of another childish “walkout” by supporters of the South Tyneside Independent councillors who no longer wish to come and comment here, there has inevitably been a downturn in visitors during February, there’s no point hiding from that fact. Monthly visits have dropped from 21,000 to 17,150, but conversely visitors are now reading an average 5.1 pages each, as pageloads creep closer towards the 100,000 mark . As I stated last month, I have a wider audience to worry about as well as my local readership, so the out turn is not as bad as they might have feared. January had the added benefit of a large amount of traffic driven this way from Iain Dale’s Diary on the story about the South Tyneside Council meeting of that month, as well as some sizeable hits via Reuters about Northern Rock. February has seen large referrals from Guido Fawkes and links to this blog from Nick Robinson at the BBC, Time Magazine, and CNN News!

So in relation to The Northern Herald’s “growing” readership I’m surviving quite nicely.

February’s top ten

These were the top ten posts in the Corner Shop last month ranked by page loads.

• Grooming young girls for sex
• Luring young girls for sex
• Nick Robinson
• The new job
• South Tyneside Independents continue to harrass officer
• Fighting like ferrets in a sack
• Labour resigned to losing Waggott
• War of words throws up conundrum
• Save Sayed Pervez Kambaksh
• Alliance breaks up

Northern Rock review

A week that saw Freedom of Information hit the headlines

The nationalisation ot the Northern Rock bank was finalised yesterday after only three days debate in the House of Commons including a heated exchange of views between Conservative Leader David Cameron and Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Once again Labour showed it’s propensity to hide behind the argument of “commercial sensitivity” (how often have we heard that in South Shields Town Hall?) when we learned that the “peoples bank” will not be subjected to the measure contained in the Freedom of Information Act.

The vast majority of the valuable mortgage assets have been hived off to an offshore company that basically leaves Northern Rock as a savings bank no longer interested in helping people to get on the housing ladder, indeed it is now advising customers to look elsewhere for a mortgage. Despite having a less than concrete alternative proposal for the future of Northern Rock (nationalisation was inevitable) Conservative Leader still managed to wound Prime Minister Brown with some stinging barbs at Wednesday’s weekly Prime Minister’s Questions knock about!

Watch the video

Northern Crock costs

£182m per job

The nationalisation of the Wreck comes at quite a staggering cost, quite apart from the £100bn already thrown at the bank, we now learn that costs of another £100m will be charged for the financial and legal advice it received in the past five months while Brown and Darling dithered over the outcome. Ron Sandler, it’s government appointed chairman now has to plan to massively cut back on it’s scale of operations and downscale the number of jobs, no longer will Northern Rock be able to offer competitive mortgages as it needs to comply with EU regulations preventing state subsidised competitors. Additionally the state will now be responsible for repossessing homes as Alistair Darling said that Northern Rock would not be discouraged from repossessing homes belonging to people who fell behind with their mortgages.

“They will be treated no differently from people with mortgages with other banks”

Man in a Shed has calculated that the costs of saving the Wreck amount to £182m per employee (they are indeed expensive votes). It would have been much cheaper to give them all a £1m each as part of a settlement to close the bank.

The costs to the tax payer now amount to the equivalent of £3,500 each, tax payer’s exposure is greater than the budget for the entire NHS, and the equivalent of 27p on the basic rate of income tax.

Come to think of it, if the mortgages had been sold on to it’s competitors and the staff made redundant with in excess of a £1m in their pockets we might have seen a significant upsurge in enterprising new businesses in the North East. We may not have needed any regeneration assistance from the government either!

Instead Ron Sandler is to be paid £94,000 a month (£1m a year by the tax payer) to put half of them on the dole - doh!

Sam Bartram Memorial Cup

Charlton Athletic to support Boldon CA

I’m happy to bring news of another local football event worthy of your support, after standing around freezing on the Dragon in South Shields this morning watching local pub teams playing each other.

Boldon Neighbourhood Management Initiative, which is supported by Home and South Tyneside Council, has come up with a special way to commemorate one of the town’s footballing heroes.

They have organised the Sam Bartram Memorial Cup, to commemorate his unsurpassed career as a goalkeeper for Charlton Athletic Football Club.

South Shields born Sam, who passed away in 1981 aged 67, played for Boldon Villa in the early 1930s before being spotted and signed by Charlton Athletic, with whom he went on to play a record 623 games, including back-to-back FA Cup Finals, one of which they won.

The game, between Boldon Villa and Cleadon FC, is to be played at Boldon CA and, in preparation, some of the town’s young people got together to spruce up Sam’s old ground

The match will take place on February 28 with the warm up match between community workers and parents against kids starting at 6.15pm. The inaugural Sam Bartram Trophy match will kick off at around 7.15pm. A reception and buffet will take place after the games and Mike Blake, author of Sam Bartram: The Story of a Goalkeeping Legend, will make the presentations.

Boldon Neighbourhood Manager, Maria Anderson, said: “Everyone is really excited about the football match and it is testament to their enthusiasm that the young people have worked tirelessly to get the ground ready for action.

“They have moved wood and cut down some trees which were being used by people to access the grounds. Work will then begin to use the salvageable pieces of fencing to repair the existing structure and give it a fresh coat of paint.

“We are also looking for funding to help modernise the club’s ground so that the its future can be secured into the next century.

“We want the whole community to get behind the event and come along on the evening to enjoy this fantastic tribute.”

Charlton Athletic Football Club is supporting the event by sending strips for the team and a signed goalkeeper’s top for ‘the Villa’ to display in the clubhouse. Also supporting the event are South Tyneside Council, Boldon Neighbourhood Management Initiative and Youth Project and Home, through its Supporting Communities Fund, which is paying for the magnificent trophy.

So, if you fancy a little bit of football and a buffet, why not get along there, and if you have a business or particularly deep pockets, why not take your cheque book with you!