Black Wednesday:
Carpet Right
Moss Bros
Kingfisher
ScS
Mothercare
New Look
(Maplin/Toys Я Us)
We all know that retail has to restructure as a result of structural changes in society: internet shopping and the affect this is having on the High Street.
Towns with smaller independent traders are said to be doing better but there are other spectres out there. One is that since austerity started to bite, public sector wages have risen hardly at all... if at all. That's thanks to a government pay cap .Denbighshire relies heavily on the public sector: there are proportionately more employees in the public sector living in Denbighshire than anywhere in the *UK*.
Moreover, Rhuthun/Ruthin houses the county council headquarters. No real term pay increases, a falling head count, a County Hall now too big for the council's requirements, a potential merger with Conwy and numbers and spending power begins to degrade.
And, elsewhere, household incomes are threatened by reductions in welfare benefits for those in work, frozen for three years. Living standards have fallen. We're not in recession but the gloom remains. We've become so accustomed to spending less that the slow but sure increases in pay within the NHS may not have the impact we expect. Scrimping has become second nature.
Alongside this is a bought of post-Brexit jitter-inspire inflation, further dinting the bank balance.
The good news is that Welsh towns majoring on independents are suffering less. But in Rhuthun's case, how long can this last? We've lost a bank with a second is to follow. Nat West customers have migrated to Yr Wyddgrug... spending there, not here.
Carpet Right
Moss Bros
Kingfisher
ScS
Mothercare
New Look
(Maplin/Toys Я Us)
We all know that retail has to restructure as a result of structural changes in society: internet shopping and the affect this is having on the High Street.
Towns with smaller independent traders are said to be doing better but there are other spectres out there. One is that since austerity started to bite, public sector wages have risen hardly at all... if at all. That's thanks to a government pay cap .Denbighshire relies heavily on the public sector: there are proportionately more employees in the public sector living in Denbighshire than anywhere in the *UK*.
Moreover, Rhuthun/Ruthin houses the county council headquarters. No real term pay increases, a falling head count, a County Hall now too big for the council's requirements, a potential merger with Conwy and numbers and spending power begins to degrade.
And, elsewhere, household incomes are threatened by reductions in welfare benefits for those in work, frozen for three years. Living standards have fallen. We're not in recession but the gloom remains. We've become so accustomed to spending less that the slow but sure increases in pay within the NHS may not have the impact we expect. Scrimping has become second nature.
Alongside this is a bought of post-Brexit jitter-inspire inflation, further dinting the bank balance.
The good news is that Welsh towns majoring on independents are suffering less. But in Rhuthun's case, how long can this last? We've lost a bank with a second is to follow. Nat West customers have migrated to Yr Wyddgrug... spending there, not here.
We've yet to reach the bottom. We're spending more of the essentials... food... fuel... and an awful lot less on comparison goods non-food. This doesn't favour our town traders.
Tags:
Shops