Ribby Hall Village had its five-star rating
renewed by Visit England for the 14th consecutive year. It is one of just six holiday villages to hold the rating in England.
Paul Spencer Partner, PM+M
@pmm_acc The Lancaster & South Lakes branch
of Sales Geek appointed Jennie Edmondson and relocated to Lower House Sensory Farm to enable it to deliver its face-to-face training away from customer premises. A new Sales Geek franchise also launched in London.
Nine Lancashire County Council
projects designed to spark regeneration and economic growth received a combined £3.4m of government funding. The projects, which received the money from the Community Renewal Fund, include £700,000 for a Low Carbon Technology Business Support and Skills Academy, £650,000 for the Pennine Lancashire Linear Park Pilot along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal corridor, £260,000 to establish a centre to educate Rossendale residents about decarbonisation, and further funds for digital resilience training for businesses.
Lancaster-based design studio Two
Stories created a new brand identity and developed a new website for the London Symphony Chorus, the choral partner of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Blackpool-based South Shore Accountants has grown to a team of five and is set to further expand its office space following a successful period of growth. The business, launched as a kitchen-table operation in 2013 by Mark Crampton, is now based within Blackpool Enterprise Centre.
Hoddlesden Mill near Darwen, which closed nearly 20 years ago, has been acquired by Kingswood Homes and is to be converted into a residential development. The property on Johnson New Road stands within 7.2 acres, but hasn’t been operational since 2003 and suffered a fire in 2008.
Catterall-based contractor Collinson
Construction began work on a £3.16m sporting facility at King Edward VI Grammar School in Louth, Lincolnshire. The new facilities will include a new two-storey, five-court sports hall featuring an external viewing platform, alongside a single-storey ancillary building which will house a dance studio, fitness suite, changing rooms and office space.
DOWN Online fashion retailer boohoo, which
owns brands such as Debenhams and Pretty Little Things and operates a major distribution hub in Burnley, revised its sales forecasts downwards for a second time. It is now projecting annual sales growth of between 12 and 14 per cent, down from its initial 20 to 25 per cent. Chief executive John Lyttle said he expected the “headwinds” to be short lived.
The Blackpool headquartered
Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) called for urgent support for smaller firms in December, amid surging inflation and Omicron uncertainty. Responding to the news that the Bank of England had raised the base interest rate to 0.25 per cent, national chair Mike Cherry, said: “This move will increase pressure on small firms with debt – four in ten of which describe their level of borrowing as ‘unmanageable’. More than a million small businesses took out loans during the pandemic, with a significant proportion of them first-time borrowers. Many took on debt more than a year ago, on the basis that Covid would be under control by now.”
The impact of ‘Plan B’ and the re-
introduction of stricter measures to protect against the Omicron variant could derail the UK’s fragile economic
recovery and have a devastating and disproportionate effect on SMEs in the North West, a leading restructuring & insolvency (R&I) practitioner warned in December. Following updated government advice, which recommended home working where possible and mandatory face coverings in most public settings, Nicola Clark, R&I Partner at Azets in the North West, said unclear guidance and an increasing lack of confidence could lead to a catastrophic impact on SMEs, at a time when support measures such as the Job Retention Scheme (JRS) were no longer available.
Business leaders reacted with disappointment to the news that the government had scrapped plans for an ‘eastern leg’ of HS2, which would have connected Leeds to the high-speed rail network. They said it represented a scaling back of the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) project.
The latest Business Barometer
from Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking showed business confidence down again. Overall confidence fell a further eight points to 34 per cent, and confidence in their own organisations fell by 12 points to 34 per cent. Overall UK confidence fell three points to 40 per cent.
RESILIENCE WILL BE VITAL IN THESE
UNCERTAIN TIMES As we move into 2022 there is no getting away from the uncertainty that surrounds us all. It is little wonder that businesses in Lancashire have approached the start of the year with some trepidation.
Covid is still having a massive impact, the shocks of Brexit are still with many of them, recruitment remains a major challenge, as do rising inflation and ongoing supply chain issues.
Some have increased their debt levels during the pandemic, including taking advantage of support schemes launched by the government during the pandemic. Repayments are now starting to be made at a time when overall costs are rising.
You don’t have to look too far down the line to see further difficulties ahead. In April the national living wage will rise by 6.6 per cent. National Insurance contributions and dividend taxes will also increase in the spring.
Rising costs, weakening consumer confidence, the spectre of further shocks from the pandemic - little wonder SME champions are calling for more to be done to support smaller firms.
It is worth stressing that there are important measures they can take themselves to help them withstand the storms. For one thing it is vitally important that businesses keep a close eye on their cashflow.
Forward planning and forecasting are also crucial. Keep on top of all your numbers and update your business plan regularly, to make sure that it is sound, and it remains relevant.
If there’s one thing that the pandemic has shown, it is the resilience and ingenuity of Lancashire’s SMEs. That resilience will once again be put to test in 2022 but we remain confident that once again they will rise to the challenge.
For more information please contact:
paul.spencer@pmm.co.uk 01254 232521
www.pmm.co.uk
LANCASHIREBUSINESSVIEW.CO.UK
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