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The Shop Doctor visited Congleton and Macclesfield Visitor Information Centres on Wednesday 15th June to assess opportunities to help improve commerciality and retail performance.

With increasing pressure on the available levels of public sector funding support required to sustain information provision it is essential that routes be found to make such Centres more commercially orientated, but in a manner that does not compromise information delivery.

In South Lakeland TIC provision is no longer generally provided by the local authority with management recently being passed to a disparate range of operators including the Cumbria Chamber of Commerce in Kendal, Lakes Hospitality Association in Windermere, and over the last three years by a private operator in Ambleside where TIC service is succesfully delivered through The Hub within the combined Post Office/TIC/Gift Shop

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Between the 1st and 3rd June the Shop Doctor visited a further 6 high street business based in Middlewich, 2 in Crewe and 1 in Nantwich Cheshire to identify solutions to help reinvigorate trading vitality.

In addition to the in store advice received from the Shop Doctor during each of the surgery visits each business will receive a written prescriptions report summarising observations made during the visit and recommendations as to how cost effective improvements might be enabled.

This latest programme of support activity is funded by Middlewich Town Council and Cheshire East Council.

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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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During a day spent in Millom on Thursday 19th May ‘The Shop Doctor’ met with a range of local retailers and assessed the impact of some of the important first impressions that faced visitors to the Town .

An evening Let’s Talk Shop workshop was attended by over 20 retailers who were given an insight into the initial findings of the day and received key pointers as to how they could take cost effective steps to help improve the impact of their individual businesses.

A report will be compiled to help Copeland Borough Council, who funded the days programme, identify keys issues that are felt to be impacting on retail vitality in the Town,

The meeting also saw opportunity to promote the ‘My Millom, proud to be’ initiative and to enthuse retailers to take advantage of £300 match funding available towards implementing improvements to their shop fronts.

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Copeland Borough Council have recruited “The Shop Doctor” to assess issues within Millom that are impacting on the retail vitality of the shopping environment and identify routes to help reinvigorate trade in the Town.

Following a day spent reviewing the Town an evening retail masterclass will be used to highlight the challenges identified and detail ways that they can be addressed. 

Our ‘Shop Doctor’ has been dispensing specialised retail assistance to independent retail operators across the north west (and beyond) since 1998 and is presently working with a number of local councils delivering a range of projects to help reinvigorate High Streets across the north west.

Click here for more about Millom

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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

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Update 6th May:

Owner of online home and garden products retailer The Range, Chris Dawson, has expressed an interest in purchasing the threatened Focus DIY business, it has emerged today

Retail Gazette have just carried the following announcement :

Almost 4,000 retail jobs are at risk following the home and DIY specialist Focus DIY’s announcement today that it is “filing a notice of intention to appoint administrators”.
Directors at the retailer, which is majority owned by Cerberus Capital and has around 170 stores, have sought consent from its lenders to appoint Ernst & Young (E&Y) as administrators. All stakeholders including staff have been informed of the plans.
E&Y is currently not commenting on the process and cannot confirm whether it will be representing Focus DIY in any administration negotiations.

Read the full story here