Recently in Retail Category

During the mid-90s (post recessionary) period I went to work for Tesco, supporting their site acquisitions activity in south east England. There was a sort of inevitability about this since the only people doing any development AT ALL in the UK at that point were the food retailers and, frankly, the sole question was: which to join?

I'd recently (and, I like to think, reluctantly) been made redundant by Stanhope and 'imself had just been made redundant by the Beckwith lads over at the London & Edinburgh Trust. We had two kids under five at that point and a huge mortgage. Needless to say, I was very grateful for the job.

My experience during the three years that I spent with Tesco (in both Cheshunt and Welwyn Garden City) was quite quite invaluable and has served me brilliantly well ever since. To say that I suffered the worst culture shock but that I learnt a huge amount whilst working there, woud be a bit like saying that Keith Floyd liked the occasional glass of wine !

I knew about offices-and-regeneration but I now needed to know about retail-and-regeneration. I went from working on one scheme in two years to running 70 new stores and 45 extensions at any one time. It was a baptism of fire really.

Do remember this was only a short time after John Gummer had introduced his totally masterly PPG6 (now PPS6), curtailing the development of conforming food stores out-of-town (possibly the most popular planning policy ever introduced - with the British public, that is, sure as hell wasn't popular with the folks working in the property departments of any of the big chains !).

I commited a huge faux pas (one of many really) on my very first day, when the name of Michael Bach was mentioned in a team meeting (Michael was senior planning adviser to the  Environment Secretary at that time, the techical draftsman of PPG6, and the weekend running partner/site visitor of my wonderful friend and mentor, the late great, Geoff Marsh) whereupon I unwittingly purred "Ooh what a lovely man", before I could bite back the words.

Apparently, clever money (I understand that the website to watch is www.politicalbetting.com) has the Conservatives winning the general election on 6 May 2010 by 91 seats. It would seem that Labour's best bet is to dress up the scanty "recovery" created by printing money and the rather sinister "quantitative easing" (beats me, guv!) as Gordon Brown saving the world's economy and the banks. Much as was attempted (with unexpected success) at the G20 down in ExCeL that time. 

Ed Balls has been rather clever by trying to outflank the Conservatives on public expenditure cuts but we all know that Labour's heart isn't in the cuts really and if they had any real cahones they would go further, perhaps tackling the NHS (shock, horror), which would seriously put the Tories in a difficult position. But they won't.

I was at the Regeneration and Renewal Awards Dinner last night, courtesy of the lovely John Holmes and his team at Hull Forward. Given the short notice of the invitation, I think Hull Forward had brought me on from the subs bench (actually John admitted as much) but, notwithstanding, I was thrilled to be there - it was a hilarious evening - and I am delighted to say that Hull won a much deserved award for Best Mixed Use Development for their St Stephen's Project (pictured, right).

Well! I found myself sitting at the rowdiest table (I hasten to say it would have been rowdy had I not been there; I was certainly not the cause of the uproar, honest!). Alistair Campbell was compere and was very sparkly (and mercifully swift with over 20 awards to get through - someone on our table was running a sweepstake on the time it would take) but "Table 3" did get told off from the platform on a number of occasions for barracking and heckling. By the time John's team won their award we were beside ourselves, and we were clearly set in for the long haul.

What on earth is going on? While almost all big businesses are suffering the effects of the recession, some facing total annihilation, certain ethical producers seem to be thriving.

One such is "Honeybuns", a bakery company specializing in goods that are as sugary as its trading name.

Pictured left working hard in the kitchen, the - extraordinarily named - (for a baker) Emma Goss-Custard (nearly as good as Mayor Nutter), the founder of the company, says: "Last year was our strongest year ever, and this year looks set to be the same.... it went beyond all expectations."

And Honeybuns is not alone. Frugi, a family-run online organic children's wear specialist, has seen its business double in the past 12 months and Jackie Williams, owner of the Organic Health store in Cambridge, which sells organic and locally sourced foods, is also doing well. She has seen some monthly sales this year increase by 40% compared to last year, adding to 14 years of steady growth.

Experts suggest that one reason for the success of these businesses is consumers seeking out more affordable treats. People are "treating themselves with small things, rather than buying new cars", says the Grocer Magazine (and certainly behavior in my own household would bear this out - 'im indoors is NOT getting a new motorbike to celebrate his mid-life crisis).

I live quite near the shopping centre known as "Westfield London", still barely half a year old, and - like many others I would imagine - I have deeply conflicting views about it. 

On one level there is no question that it is a complete triumph: the brilliant Keith Mabbett at Westfield and the retail lads at CB Richard Ellis did a stonking job on the lettings. Would have been a pretty good achievement even in a bull market but was even more astonishing given that they opened straight into the downturn. Amazing.

On another level I get more than a bit cross about the waste of leverage I believe could have been got from this resource had it been more imaginatively handled, in terms of socio-economic benefits for the community. I understand from one of the local politicians that there are only 300 local people (I assume this means from within the borough of Hammersmith & Fulham) working in the centre and, in my grumpy way, I try not to lose sight that over 8,000 jobs were created for London, which I appreciate is a right result. The real reason for my grumpiness, of course, is that for many years I worked on the project, back in the Chelsfield days, when we were in a heavy duty partnership with Hammersmith & Fulham working on local labour initiatives. And in my idealistic little fashion, in my simplistic little world, I did see the new development as the passport to ending the deprivation that is STILL extant - shockingly so - on the immediately adjacent White City Estate. I look at the White City Estate today and just feel hugely guilty - we put in some very good foundations for real local economic development in W12 but it was never followed through. Goes to show, planning and delivery mechanisms are not enough. You have to deliver, deliver, deliver. The spirit has to be willing and the flesh has to be strong.