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The latest round of Shop Doctor in store surgeries will be taking place in three areas of urban Carlisle in the near future.

Up to 16 businesses across Currock, Upperby and Harraby will be receiving visits from The Shop Doctor in this latest round of business support specifically targeted at assisting the independent retail sector.

The work  has been commissioned by Carlisle City Council and follows previous support delivered to retailers in Brampton, Longtown and Dalston.

The asistance will be provided on a first come first served basis and retailers within the nominated areas are urged to make contact to arrange a visit without delay.

Visits can be arranged directly with the Shop Doctor via 015394 40020 or email bill@sldt.co.uk.

Alternatively contact Chris Pearson, Carlisle City Council Economic Development Manager on 01228 817015 or email christopherp@carlisle.gov.uk

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Businesses who have come together in Longtown to find routes to help address issues raised in the Longtown Economic Development Action Plan discovered more about the potential opportunities provided through the establishment of a Community Land Trust at their 4th meeting last night (25th May).

Andy Lloyd of the Cumbria Rural Housing Trust attended the meeting and gave an insight into Land Trust establishment and the platform that such an organisation could provide to link commercial activity to community benefit.

The business network is being facilitated by Bill Smith of Let’s Talk Shop via Carlisle City Council funding. Bill had suggested that a Land Trust might provide an innovative route to help revitalise the towns retail offering whilst providing opportunity to develop visitor attraction facilties and affordable rental housing stock.

Following last nights presentation the group are excited about the prospects that such an initiative could deliver are now to further investigate the opportunity.

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TV Retail ‘Guru’ Mary Portas has today been asked by David Cameron to come up with a plan to help turn around the fortunes of our ailing High Streets.

Central to the review – ordered by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – is the worrying level of sales in town centres, which have dramatically under-performed other locations.

Government figures show that between 2005 and 2010, town-centre sales grew by a paltry 1.5%, while those in out of town shopping centres grew 11.5% and non-store (mail order and internet) soared by 71.5%.

As our ‘Shop Doctor’ knows only too well there will be no simple solutions as the picture across the country is extremely complex and compounded by a range of issues that range from the costs associated with operating on the High Street , the state of the local economy, customer demographic and how supermarkets and out of town retail activities interface with the towns themselves.

Underlying this is the poor condition of many of our High Street environments, parking charges and accessibility and the individual presentation of the shops within them – and then there are the challenges of the varying levels of customer service experiences and customer perception (or misperception) of what it actually costs to shop in the High Street.

Read more about this issue from Retail Gazette here

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The two recent bank holiday weekend’s have had a significantly negative impact on sales at John Lewis department stores. Figures released today reveal that trading at John Lewis fell 9.2 per cent year-on-year in the seven days to April 30th 2011, with all stores more than 12 months old reporting a drop in sales compared to the same period last year.

read full story from Retail Gazette here