Monthly Archives: September 2010

Sep 21 2010

Nottingham and the A453

I had an email yesterday from George Cowcher, Director and Chief Executive of the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce, it said:

The Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce has been asked to provide business evidence to form part of a document to be used to lobby the Government to secure the funding and approval necessary to widen the A453 between Nottingham and Junction 24 of the M1.

The current single carriageway A453 is grossly overloaded with traffic and is a major accident black spot. Until recently, plans to widen the road were in the Government’s programme for improvement. The Coalition Government has cancelled this commitment and is reviewing the scheme as part of its autumn spending review.

Failure to upgrade the A453 would have serious implications for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire businesses as well as those nationally and regionally who use the road to connect to Birmingham, Cheshire and the north west with the east coast ports. Currently delays and accidents on this road place a financial burden on business that reduces both business performance and the perception of Nottingham.

Yours sincerely

George Cowcher
DIRECTOR & CHIEF EXECUTIVE

This road is a major problem for Nottingham and has been on the agenda for many years. But it seems that every time we get close to a resolution, we have an economic crisis. But there are compelling reasons to get this road sorted out. It is a key route into the City. It is also a really poor road which just can’t handle the traffic as George says.

The letter has a link to a survey, which if you are interested is here. There’s not much time to fill the survey out – just three days. In the meantime, we should lobby our MP’s to get this put back on the agenda. At position number one!

Sep 20 2010

Service Industries – part two

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about service Industries and a bad experience I had. You can read the blog here.

The Union Public House Cowes

This weekend I experienced two levels of service – at different ends of the scale!

You might have read that I took part in the Little Britain Regatta in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Firstly our professional skipper of Hot Stuff and his mate were brilliant. They were enthusiastic, knowledgeable and became friends. It is a difficult trick to pull off – being immersed with a group of people you don’t know and having to ‘manage’ their expectations and keep them motivated. Hookie and Max pulled it off brilliantly. Perhaps because they are passionate about what they do – but also because they have some life skills and have some life experience.

But then I also saw the other end of the spectrum.

We took the very fast ferry service to Cowes operated by Red Funnel (who I entrust to get me to the Festival in June each year). This time we left the car in their expensive car par (£55 for four days) and bought tickets from a machine. I was struggling with my colleagues tickets / receipts and my bags when we approached the ferry to board. The ticket collector was sarcastic in telling me I needed to read the ticket to ensure I gave him the correct one!

Then the Union pub in Cowes boasts having the latest Licence in town. It also has a great position. And a very unhappy Landlord! I haven’t a clue how much we spent in this great little pub – perhaps £300-400. Not once did he smile. Or acknowledge us. I think the only words he spoke were to confirm the price of a round! He looked desperately unhappy. Perhaps his goldfish had died?

I do wonder sometimes why people get involved in the service industry if they don’t like people. It doesn’t take long for customers to work this out and stop returning. It also costs nothing to smile?

Sep 19 2010

Little Britain – the final day!

It was our final day yesterday at Little Britain 2010.

Hot Stuff!

And we didn’t come last… In one of the races. In the other we were just concerned to make sure everyone in front was ok. We played a blinding ‘sweeper’ role. Everyone was fine, but you can’t be too careful.

It was a day we expected to be poor as the wind was forecast to drop to 2kts – with a 2kts tide against. Which means you stand still! This is not fun sailing. But it didn’t really turn out to be too bad – with our new helmsman today (who replaced Capt. Slow) pushing the boat to its limits … we hit 8.5kts which is quite fast when you are keeled over at 45 degrees!

We made a couple of tactical errors which cost a few minutes – but for a novice crew what do you expect. Some of the yachts evidently had people who sailed for a living!

As I mentioned before there is something about boats and sailing. This was very competitive though – and perhaps next time I will try the cruising type sailing! In the Bahamas?

We don’t know our overall position yet – I suspect it will be towards the bottom of the division (we were in the Championship). I will update the blog when I know. We can hold our heads up though and I think we deserve a fair play award!

Our skipper, Hooky and his Mate, Max from Flying Fish were fantastic – even when we managed to melt Max’s head into the boom!

I would highly recommend it!

Update…

After penning this blog I discovered that we got 84 points and only one boat got more – 85! We were second. To last.

Sep 18 2010

My third time in the Isle of Wight in 2010

As I mentioned yesterday I am on the Isle of Wight with my colleagues and a number of clients at the Little Britain Sailing Regatta. Day two yesterday was challenging! The wind was gusty and quite variable.

In the morning, I think we made sure everyone in front of us was ok (gentlemanly conduct it is called in some quarters, being last in others?). By the afternoon we were in the groove and clawed our way into 15th place (out of 17). So, overall we are mid fleet (ignoring the staggered starts).

The teams ability to change sails and generally throw the boat around the water have improved vastly over three races. But I think we might need to improve some more yet! We still need help with some of the, frankly, silly nautical terms. Right, left, blunt end, sharp end and up down are very useful instructions.

This is my third time on the Island this year – I had my usual trip to the brillaint festival in June and I then had a day here when on holiday in Lymington. It’s a great place – there is something about boats and water? I wish we lived nearer the water – Nottingham is just about as far from the sea as you can get in the UK.

I also couldn’t help but notice that there are a number of cranes in Cowes – developers are building. Admittedly they have some great positions overlooking the Solent and Medina River. But development is going on nonetheless. There are a couple of apartments for sale seeking offers of around £500,000 …

Some of the property is ‘stuff of dreams’, pretty much like the chance of a podium finish for us in the race! Who knows our last day of racing tomorrow might have a miraculous end!

Sep 17 2010

Barenaked Ladies – what talent!

It’s always difficult explaining to people that you are going to see the Barenaked Ladies (as opposed to bare naked ladies). But I did earlier in the week at Nottingham’s best live music venue – Rock City.

Barenaked Ladies at Rock City Nottingham

It was my fifth time seeing them -and they never disappoint. They really are one of the most talented group of musicians I have seen. The lyrics are clever and the tunes catchy. More Radio 2 than One maybe. But then Chris Moyles goes and plays BNL for half an hour because he was seeing them in London!!

Accompanied by Joel Plaskett and Boothby Graffoe (the only singer I know named after a Lincolnshire town!), they even give a helping hand to the support before they make the stage propoer. Quite an unusual sight really! Both support acts were great.

But the main show is just fantastic – as they rattle through new and old material. One Week, If I Had A Million Dollars, The Old Apartment, Pinch Me and Falling For The First Time are all just classic BNL stock. And sound as good as the CD equivalent.

They have changed – as Steve Page, one of the bands founder members has now left. But they sound the same – demonstrating their depth of talent. They all swap instruments and all take turns on vocals. Impressive!

It’s a great show – they clearly enjoy themselves and ‘mess around’… Partial cover versions figure in the show – rapping plays a part and stories about their trips into Nottingham. Evidently dinner was at Wagamamas.

I was pleased to see that I wasn’t the oldest member of the audience. Neither was I the youngest! I do know quite a lot of the lyrics though.

My only complaint? They didn’t play one of my favourite songs of all time – Brian Wilson. Oh well, maybe next time guys? I will be there next time…

Sep 16 2010

Little Britain 2010 – day one

It is three years since I entered my first race as a novice – on board a racing yacht in The Solent. The race is known as Little Britain. In parts it can be like comedy!

The Innes England Little Britain team 2010

This year we have our own team – and for the next three days we are pitting our collective wits and sailing skills against others in the building and property industry.

Last time I raced we broke the boat – which was slightly concerning, but also disappointing as we seemed to be doing so well. We also got a bit wet when the yacht broached. I am not too keen on this manoeuvre!

The Yacht is called ‘Hot Stuff’ and is a Beneteau 40.7′ – needing a crew of 8 or 10. We set sail this morning from Cowes for some drills and practice in the Solent. Our skipper, Hooky and his mate, Max were very patient with us!

At 2.00pm we raced in our Class, there seemed to be about 30 boats jostling for position on the line. And after 2 hours of darting and tacking up and down the coast we were back on dry land. We don’t know where we are yet – as it is a handicapped race! It was certainly competitive…

It was a big team effort today and I realise just how complex boats are – and how you need to respect the sea and the water. It’s great fun – exhilarating, but quite exhausting! So I think it may be necessary to have some Apres Sail?

I will update the blog later if I can work out where we are, but my take is that there were four boats behind us! Which must mean we are not last?

update!

It seems that out of 19 boats we are currently in 17th place. This seems to be wrong! We have four more race to rectify the situation…

Sep 15 2010

Turnover v profit v cash

It’s that time of year when the Estates Gazette publish the Top 60 firms survey (it used to be Top 100). And this week my firm remained in the Top 60 – unchanged at number 45 for two years running. This is based on pure turnover.

But in terms of fees per fee earner we do rather better at number 29.

Behind the numbers there is the news that we already knew – our turnover had fallen by 19.8% between 2008 and 2009. And our fee per fee earner had fallen from £160k in 2008 to £130k in 2009.

The overall picture for the Industry and the Top 60 collectively was a drop in turnover of 7% with 3,000 job losses in 2 years.

Broadly 50% of the firms thought the market had bottomed out but the rest thought it would not be at the bottom until some time in 2011. As you might have guessed we are probably in the latter camp!

It was interesting to see that a number of the firms have started to spread their business offerings; we have by adding a Building Surveying function. This has worked really well to the extent that our second Surveyor joined the firm last week. So we have been recruiting for the first time since our cost cutting redundancies in November 2008.

Our profitability has remained fairly static in the last two years – but we are still profitable.

I was reminded of the Bankers Mantra – Turnover is Vanity, Profit is Sanity and Cash is Reality! Never has a truer phrase been spoken!

Sep 14 2010

The property market – mixed messages

Last week I wrote a report for a client in which I expressed a concern that we could be heading for a “perfect storm” in the property market. It doesn’t suit my business to talk the market down, but I have some concerns when people are starting to rely on sales for further investment.

In essence my concern is that we have not started on the Public Sector cuts yet and these are likely to increase unemployment. Unemployment generally has a negative effect on the property market as confidence wanes. Then in January VAT increases to 20% as one of the fiscal measures to reduce our deficit starts to bite. Inflation is currently above the Governments target and one short sharp shock way of dealing with this is to increase the base rate. If this happens the cost of borrowing increases hitting the residential market with a second blow.

These blows to the residential market generally then hit the commercial market. I hope they don’t.

And I also spoke to one of my friends who is a Banker. They are starting to look much closer at their customers – and the view is that some are likely to have the plug pulled shortly…

Against this rather gloomy picture my monthly Property Investor Bulletin arrived from PropertyData. Last month I blogged about it here.

Volumes of transaction continue to perform well against 2009 – with £18.3bn of property having been transacted as against £12.8bn in the same period last year. But we are still at about 40% of the 2007 figures!

Last month the average yield was 6.44% – but has crept up again to 6.00% this month. There were 72 deals in the last month.

Property was more expensive when compared to the 3,6 and 12 month comparable figures (which were 6.04, 6.25 and 6.61% respectively).

And in the last month there was a net investment in the property sector by the major Institutions – they sold £266m of property and bought £588m.

So, it’s a very mixed message – and I really do hope I am wrong about the black clouds on the horizon…

Sep 13 2010

Happy Birthday to my blog

My blog is one year old today – it has been a fascinating journey. It was a bit of an experiment really. I have used the blog to have some rants, publicise my firm and share my experiences…

Thanks for dropping by… and thanks for commenting if you have.

I’m going to have a day off Blogging to celebrate – but I’ll be back tomorrow.

The end of this week look quite interesting… another adventure! More to follow!!

Sep 12 2010

12 months on…where were you?

I was in Los Angeles – with the Sheriff of Nottingham, on my fact finding tour of the USA. We were in search of world class attractions – and in particular, attractions that would have a resonance with Nottingham and our local hero – Robin Hood.

The trip was fascinating and we learned a lot. The knowledge was shared with the Sheriff’s Commission and there was much enthusiasm for building a new Robin Hood attraction – based around Urban Entertainment. The buzz around the Russell Crowe film as palpable. I went to the Premiere in Nottingham.

Then there was launch at MIPIM 2010 – and the talk I gave about how we had to capitalise on our very own asset.

So what has happened one year on?

Well, the Commission has been disbanded. I’m not sure that the work has been done. Yes there has been some good from the Commission – The Robin Hood month has put Nottingham back on the map. And the City, I think, have let Robin back into their psyche – he was a bit of a lost cause for a while.

The next stage is for the City to put together a prospectus for potential developers. I have an involvement in this. It is a critical step in us achieving something for the City. But, it needs more than just a glossy brochure – it needs commitment and enthusiasm to deliver. This might be a bit more challenging – especially against the economic backdrop.

We still have some way to go. We have to keep pushing forward – one day we will be out of recession – and we need to be ready with a world class attraction. One which Nottingham can be proud of.

I was reminded in China two weeks ago of the branding power of Robin Hood. When I was asked where I was from – people don’t know where Nottingham is. But when you say ‘home of Robin Hood’ or mock pulling an arrow on a bow – they immediately ‘get it’. How many other places can boast such a powerful brand – which crosses geographical and language barriers? Not many methinks!