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SECTOR FOCUS: RETAIL


This could be a better year for local retailers


Noreen Khan is pictured with (from left): Halima Haque, Amy Brotherton (store manager), Laura Groves, and Raqual Andrews from the Body Shop New Street Station


Body Shop’s star- studded opening


Award-winning Asian Network DJ Noreen Khan has officially opened the region’s newest Body Shop, at Birmingham’s New Street Station. The weekday radio host, whose


show was recently given the accolade of ‘Best Radio Show’ at this year's’ Asian Media Awards, was given a special make-over in the new store before cutting the green ribbon. Store manager Amy Brotherton


said: “It was just such an honour and pleasure to have Noreen open The Body Shop at New Street Station. We were really pleased that we were able to give her an exclusive makeover so she was ready for her photo shoot.”


W


hen I last wrote in Chamberlink at the end of November I was


hoping for a bumper Christmas trading period for Burton – and what a Christmas it turned out to be. We had a fantastic Christmas


period bookended by record breaking numbers of visitors on Black Friday and then a final week before Christmas that saw visitor numbers to the Octagon almost 20 per cent higher than in the same week in 2014. All this was against a back drop of national numbers visiting towns and shopping centres being close to level and even down in some cases on 2014. The local MP and others like myself had called for people to shop locally and this really seemed to have ‘struck a chord’ with Burtonians responding accordingly. So what may 2016 mean for


Burton? I for one, would like to think that the long awaited


RETAIL THERAPY


BY PETER HARDINGHAM GENERAL MANAGER, OCTAGON CENTRE, BURTON


redevelopment of this shopping centre will get started during 2016. This is all dependent on retailer interest in the reconfigured space, which is strong but not yet confirmed. Then there is the old issue of retail vacant units. This is something else that is likely to improve further in 2016 as the economy continues to move in the right direction and national


and independent retailers see the opportunities that exist in the town and follow the lead set by those that have already opened here in the last 12 months. Within the three shopping centres there is already a vacancy rate of less than seven per cent which is down by almost 50 per cent on what it was this time last year. Can we achieve zero in 2016? And then finally the local


authority has some interesting ideas on how it would like to take the town centre forward in 2016 including town centre free to access Wi-Fi and an extension of the ‘free after three’ parking initiative that was introduced towards the end of 2015 in selected car parks under the control of the local authority both in Burton and in Uttoxeter. A study to investigate the feasibility of both such initiatives is currently underway and is expected to report in March. How will all this pan out? Time will tell.


62 CHAMBERLINK FEBRUARY 2016


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