The beginning of the end or vice versa?
My business is at the heart of the property industry in the east midlands – although we do work beyond too.
The most frequent question we are asked is – is the worst of the recession over. And the answer is we don’t know. I am not a fan of talking the market down – the press do a pretty good job of that. But, it is difficult to say it’s green on this side of the field – it isn’t. The market is tough. Deal are hard to do.
Gerald “Crap” Ronson said this week that “We are only two years in to the nightmare and we need to be prepared for another five to seven years before we see sunshine.” I am not sure I share this view. But I do think it will be difficult for a bit longer yet.
2010 is not looking too good – we have a winter of discontent on the cards by the looks of the number of strikes on the cards (post, fire fighters, council staff et al). And then we have an election in May? Followed by a period of ‘review’ – i.e. do nothing!
Another one bites the dust
And this week we saw data from the Local Data Company which showed that out of 251,000 shops across the UK, 25,000 have closed since January! Department stores, Womenswear and Childrenswear were hardest hit. In Nottingham you can see this just by walking down into Hockley. But, I was in Hornchurch in the week and that seemed a remarkably resilient place with very few vacancies. So, again the picture is not clear.
It’s pretty cold comfort if you have a business and you are in trouble. The BBC reported yesterday that there were 35,242 personal insolvencies in the third quarter of 2009, up 28% from the same period last year and an increase of 6.6% on the previous three months.
I would like to think that this is the beginning of the end… But just like the date for my gas supply pipe at Abel Collins, I’m not holding my breath!
