Steady rise in mortgage approvals

The number of mortgages approved for house purchases by the major High Street banks has risen for the seventh month in a row, figures show.

The BBA reports figures for the major High Street banks

 

The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) said approvals in July stood at 38,181, a rise of 7.4% compared with June.

The data suggests that the rise in activity and house prices could stretch into the autumn.

However, the group warned that new lending was below seasonal expectations despite greater demand from borrowers.

sourced from The BBC

Filed under: banking sector, bbc, British Goverment, high street, homes, housing, news, recession, banking sector, banks, BBA, bbc, borrowers, britain, British Bankers' Association, business, capitalism, high street, mortgages, news, Steady rise in mortgage approvals

NEW blog in development

allaboutgrub

Hi all, I have been developing a new blog please come and visit it

allaboutgrub.wordpress.com

 – this blog is all about food, ingredients and where to buy good quality food from – add a marker to my allaboutgrub map to tell others about great places to eat out or places to buy great food from –

“go on share your food experiences with others” 

Filed under: Advert, Aldi, banking sector, bbc, blog, blogger, expansion, fresh, Get Involved, high street, homes, house price fall, housing, Iceland, Lidl, local produce, manufacturing, McDonalds, Morrisons, news, Newspapers, recession, Sainsbury's, sales soar, Stores, Strikes, supermarket, Tesco, The Guardian, The Independent, The Mirror, The Observer, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Times, Unemployment, Update, USA, Waitrose, Wild cat strikes, woolworth, basic, eating, eating out, eating well, food, free range, fresh, good quality, grub, helthy, ingredients, local, recession, Supermarkets, supply, support

Crimes increase as a recession looms

As the recession takes hold, we can expect crime especially theft to increase. Mostly this theft will be shop lifting. As supermarkets are seeing significant increases in shop lifting, this will only increase as we get further and further into the recession.  But if someone is stealing to feed their family, should we be more lenient on them.

But will the supermarkets cover this loss or will it be passed onto the consumer.

Shoplifiting for food soars as recession looms

Shoplifting in supermarkets has increased by more than a third since the economic downturn began to bite, according to some of the biggest stores.

Essential items like baby food are among the items being stolen most often as thieves increasingly steal out of necessity rather than greed.

At stores belonging to Iceland, the frozen food specialist, the most popular product for thieves is a leg of lamb followed by cheese, bacon and coffee.

At Tesco, the country’s largest retailer, thefts are up by more than a third (36 per cent) this year and at Marks & Spencer the problem is also increasing.

Retailers say shoplifting has increased in previous recessions and they are taking extra security measures this time including electronically tagging food.

Stephen Robertson, director-general of the British Retail Consortium, said: “Retailers are preparing for an upsurge in offences and are extending crime prevention methods, for example, placing electronic security tags on expensive cuts of meat.”

sourced from The Telegraph read full article

The recession crimewave

The recession puts police on the back foot as official figures show offences in 31 police forces are on the rise.

By Mark Hughes, Crime Correspondent and Ben Russell, Home Affairs Correspondent.

Robbery and burglary are on the rise across the country, almost doubling in some areas, according to figures that provide the first evidence that the economic downturn is fuelling crime.

Figures obtained by The Independent from police forces across England and Wales show that cases of burglary or robbery rose in 31 of the 43 forces in the final four months of the year in comparison with the same period in 2007. In those 31 areas an extra 5,572 crimes of burglary and robbery were committed in the final months of 2008, compared with the previous year.

Forces such as Greater Manchester, Suffolk, Gloucestershire and Cumbria all saw increases of between 20 and 50 per cent. Lincolnshire police saw the biggest rise, a 97 per cent increase in robbery between September and November – the most recent three-month period collated by the force – compared with the same three-month period the previous year.

sourced from The Independent read full article

Filed under: down turn, high street, recession, The Telegraph, business, crimewave, food, shop lifiting, stealing, Stores, Supermarkets, theft

High street hit by Downturn

The economic downturn has seen high profile failures such as Woolworths, and High Streets across the country are worried about falling sales.

News video from the BBC

Founder on Lush talks about the downturn from the BBC

Founder of Lush Cosmetics Mark Constantine explains why British retail has taken a turn for the worse.

Filed under: bbc, down turn, high street, bbc, downturn, for sale, high street, Lush, recession, shopping, shops, Stores

Sales soar at Primark

Primark sales sour over the Christmas period. As the rest of the high street suffer Primark sales increase.

Article

Primark has enjoyed another successful Christmas, with sales soaring by more than a fifth as its cut-price chic continued to appeal to shoppers.

Parent company Associated British Foods said today that total sales at the fashion store rose by 21% in the final 16 weeks of last year.

The sharp rise was partly attributed to Primark opening six new stores during the year, but the group said like-for-like sales growth, which excludes new space, was “very strong” at around 4%.

Primark’s performance provides further evidence that shoppers are becoming increasingly thrifty as the recession hammers consumer confidence – a trend that sent clothing sales falling sharply at Marks & Spencer.

Primark fired several suppliers in 2008 following allegations that they were using child labour. But this week, allegations emerged that one of its UK suppliers was subjecting its workers to sweatshop conditions, with illegal immigrants receiving just half the minimum wage for 12-hour days, seven days a week.

read full article sourced from the Guardian

Filed under: bbc, down turn, high street, recession, sales soar, Stores, bbc, business, consumer, downturn, high street, Primark, recession, sales soar, Stores

Sales slide at Currys and Argos

When I read this article, it really does real like the downturn is having a major effect. You would expect a lot of small retail shops to close and the odd big one like Woolworth, but here we are facing the end of Argos, Currys and PC world – so all those out of town retail parks will soon be very empty.

The article

Sales at several of Britain’s top retail chains have fallen markedly as a result of the economic slowdown.

DSG International, which owns Currys and PC World, said like-for-like sales – which ignore new stores – had dropped 10% in the three months to 10 January.

Home Retail Group said like-for-like sales at its Argos chain had fallen 7.5% in the 18 weeks to 3 January.

DIY chain Homebase, which is also owned by Home Retail Group, saw like-for-like sales in the same period drop 10.2%.

Many retailers are struggling as consumers cut back on spending amid rising jobless figures, falling house prices and recession worries.

read more sourced from the BBC

Filed under: bbc, Changing recession, down turn, high street, recession, Stores, Argos, bbc, business, Currys, downturn, news, PC world, shops, Stores

Downturn in the USA

Retail sales fell in December by 2.7 percent, a worse-than-expected number that shows how rising unemployment, stagnant wages and an ongoing housing crisis have undermined one of the basic props of the U.S. economy.

Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity but has headed down every month since June — the longest period of decline since the current method of reporting the statistic was adopted in the early 1990s.

U.S. stock indexes dropped on the news, with the Dow Jones industrial average and other major exchanges losing about 1.5 percent in the opening minutes of trading. Losses had reached roughly 3 percent before noon.

read full article sourced from The Washington Post

Filed under: down turn, high street, recession, Stores, USA, capitalism, consumer, downturn, econimic, recession, retail, sales fall, Stores, USA

HMV to snap up some Zavvi stores

Entertainment retailer HMV has said it is to buy 14 stores from troubled chain Zavvi, funded by selling new shares.

Proceeds will also be used to fund a move into the live music market, taking a joint stake in a firm running 11 venues such as Hammersmith Apollo.

It will also get naming rights to some of the venues.

HMV also said that sales in the five weeks to 3 January – which includes the Christmas period – were up by 2.9%, or by 0.5% not including new stores.

Rebranding

The Zavvi stores it is buying are all profitable, HMV said, primarily in locations where it does not currently have a store.

It expects the cost of the purchase to be about £2m – including fitting out and rebranding the stores. Nine of them are in the UK and five in the Irish Republic.

read full article at The BBC

Filed under: bbc, Changing recession, down turn, high street, Stores, bbc, business, buy up, capitalism, consumer, downturn, shops, Stores, zavvi

Obituary of the high street

I have created this page as a kind of joke, but I will update this as other high street shops fall into administration.

Let me know if you know of any other shops no longer operating – regardless of how big or small.

Obituary of the high street list

Filed under: down turn, high street, recession, britain, business, consumer, downturn, obituary, recession, shops, Stores, years

Land of Leather latest UK retail collapse

LONDON — Sofa retailer Land of Leather filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, becoming the latest British retailer to succumb to a downturn in consumer spending amid the global economic slowdown.

Land of Leather, which operates 109 retail stores across Britain and Ireland, entered the administration process _ where a company is run independently with the priority of returning funds to creditors _ after failing to raise working capital or find a buyer.

Lee Manning, one of the appointed administrators at Deloitte said that the company’s stores would continue to trade as normal “while the administrators continue to talk to interested parties with a view to concluding a sale of the business as a going concern.”

Land of Leather said it had found itself in challenging market conditions “for some time” as a result of the credit crunch and a lack of household spending on big ticket retail items. sourced from The Washington Post read more

My comment

This is the first of these kind of shops to go, I think we will be seeing a lot more interior / furniture / house hold accessories – Now we have all bought cushions, rugs, lampshades and kitchen’s, all these shops that have opened up on the strength of the ideal home / interior design period will all start suffering. Lets all start being individual, make cushions from old materials or clothes rather then buying new ones. Thing more creatively around our homes and their interiors.

Filed under: Changing recession, down turn, high street, recession, Stores, 1980s, business, capitalism, consumer, downturn, for sale, high street, recession, shops, Stores