Today Mary Portas has today published her much anticipated report which makes interesting reading for those in the retail sector. More particularly, Ms Portas suggests local government should accept   responsibility for some of the problems currently befalling high streets/ town centres throughout the land. However, the report also suggests that local authorities have to be part of the solution to improving town centres and that they should work alongside members of the community to promote change. All those in business will welcome the reduction of red tape but great care has to be taken to ensure that members of the public are protected from rogue traders.

I welcome the suggestion of a National Market Day. From my childhood days, I remember how many of the towns in Cornwall were a hive of activity on market day.

Free parking schemes also are a welcome suggestion, which can lead to increased footfall in town centres. Unfortunately, our local authority sees parking charges as an extra revenue stream. As a major tourist centre this is to be expected, but during winter I believe greater efforts should be made to reduce parking fees to encourage the local population to visit our town centres.  The report very importantly highlights the cost of local business rates and the burden it places on new businesses.   I for one welcome a review of this area.

Luckily, we in Falmouth have already put in place a successful BID project and our centre is very proactively run by Richard Gates. Let us all take food for thought from this report and in the new year join together to form a consultative body to focus on this report and suggest ways forward for our local community.

For further details of the report follow the link below:

Jeremy Edwards
Chairman
Port of Falmouth Chamber of Commerce.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/business-sectors/docs/p/11-1434-portas-review-future-of-high-streets.pdf

 

Further to the Port of Falmouth consultation exercise which has been going on for the past few months the Falmouth Masterplan is now complete and and available for inspection together with associated documents at the link below:  www.cornwall.gov.uk/falmouth.

The inaugural Falmouth Business Conference was held on May 19th in the Falmouth Hotel, and attracted over 130 local businesses and prominent members of the Falmouth Community. 

The title of the event was "Falmouth and Penryn - Inspiring business growth in Cornwall", and the chamber is proud to have been one of the groups within the town involved in putting the event together.

Many messages of thanks and support have arrived since the day so we are very grateful to have received those.  Those who were there on the day will understand that an important output for the day was that there will be actions to take forward from this to really establish some additional momentum for business growth in Falmouth and Cornwall as a whole.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the many volunteers who gave their time and energies into setting up and making the event a success, and the sponsors who contibuted to the cost and material requirements of making it happen.

There is more information about the event on the Falmouth Business Club web site, including the following: T

• Thanks for the day
• A series of podcasts on different aspects of the event

A Short video of the day will also be available on the same web site soon - please check back for further details.

If you would like to be kept in touch with information about similar events in the future, please sign up on this site and we'll be happy to keep you in the loop with out occasional email updates.

 

As it took George Osborne a couple of hours to get through his budget speech which for most people can be a bit of a trial, Hodsons Accountant have kindly provided a summary report which is intended to make things easier to understand and cover the key points. Follow the link to download a copy Budget Report 2011.