Had a great time yesterday at the Oxford Greens Winter Fair. Met up with Deputy Green Party Leader Shahrar Ali as well as telling Green Santa what I wanted for Christmas.
It was also good to chat with al the other Oxfordshire Parliamentary candidates. Lot’s of optimism about next year’s election.
Retail is in my blood! And I know it’s not all about Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Think about it Tuesday!
I’m a small independent retailer myself, and I know how vital this time of the year is for small businesses, many of them struggling against the huge chain stores and out of town developments. Most small retailers need to make 40% or more of their annual turnover in the run up to Christmas or they may not be here next time. Please think about that when you’re doing your Christmas shop. If you want vibrant, original, independents you have to show them some love and splash a bit of cash.
As a campaigner and writer on all things retail, I’ll be supporting my local indie high street this weekend. I hope you will too!
The CDC official announcement of the Garden City status confirms that the claim by Nick Clegg of building 13,000 new homes was spurious. 10,000 were already planned and only an additional 3000 will be built as a result of the new scheme.
The one thing that jumps out though is that this will not be a single development, as seems to be the impression offered by Clegg and the government.
Surely the vision of a garden city has always been a single town (such as Milton Keynes) built around a common infrastructure. This seems completely at odds with that.
Ian Middleton 