The hangover continues…

Our decade or so of spend, spend, spend continues to leave us suffering the inevitable ‘hangover’ of debt. Figures released today by the Insolvency Service show that personal insolvencies have hit a new record in England & Wales with over 35,000 of us being declared insolvent – up nearly 30% on 2008’s figures!

The really worrying part is that nearly half of all those people have pretty much given up and opted for bankruptcy, which isn’t to be taken lightly.

So far, nearly 100,000 people have been declared insolvent in 2009 alone, and analysts are predicting another record-breaking year with figures rising as high as 130,000.

It seems that we’re all broke and facing financial pressures from all angles – unemployment, the housing market, rising bills etc. All this at a time when we are being told that to get the economy moving, we all need to spend!

On the plus side, higher figures mean more people are getting the right help, let’s just hope then that we can all get our debts paid off and get back to the boom times!

The Digital Switchover has started

The Digital Switchover starts in the North West today. The plan is to kill of the analogue signal so that we can all go digital. BBC Two is the first casualty and no doubt the other four terrestrial channels will follow suit in the not too distant future. As has been well publicised, there are numerous ways to switch, all of which come at a cost to the consumer.

Now, I have two issues with this, not only is it going to cost me money, but it’s surely going to come at a huge cost to the environment too. I currently subscribe to a TV service provider and for a set fee each month I receive extra channels and services. However, this is only on my TV downstairs. Upstairs, I have a trusty but old portable that is in full working order and which has served me well over the years (more than I care to mention). However, because it is so old, it does not have anywhere to plug a Freeview box into and if I want to continue having a second TV in my house, my only option is buy a brand spanking new one.

Trouble is I like my trusty, old portable. I don’t want to fork out best part of £150 for a new one this side of Christmas and I really resent having to get rid of something that is in good working order! And, I bet I’m not the only one in this position, so imagine how many TVs are going to end up on refuse sites up and down the country as the switchover continues! Not very green is it? So, I’ve decided to dig my heels in (at least for the time being) and forego the luxury of a second TV. Cue lots of rows over the remote in my house!!

The price is right!

The latest figures from Rightmove indicate that property prices in the North West have risen by £4,089 in the last month, as reported by Place North West today. Perhaps as house prices are rising and bankers have now got their bonuses back, we’re finally starting to say goodbye to the, dare I say it, recession? Let’s hope so! 

http://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/archive/4637-nw-house-price-average-is-169-263-says-rightmove.html

What price property…?

The property market is rather like the curate’s egg at present – good in parts and not in others. While plummeting land values have made deals at best sluggish, small and medium sized developers are snapping up ‘distressed’ sites and seeing prices rally if not recover.
Here in the North West, we’ve always enjoyed a buoyant regional property market. The region offers a myriad of highly sought-after addresses, from Chester in the West to the Peak District in the East, the shores of Lake Windermere in the North to the ‘golden triangle’ of Alderley Edge/Prestbury/Wilmslow in the South.
This being the case it makes sense to suppose that property values here will always hold up over the long term. The question on everyone’s lips is: can they recover to the all-time highs of 2006 ?
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Even in a speculative market, the key is the differential rather than the absolute value of your property. Provided you can make enough profit on your sale to secure the house you want to purchase, the numbers involved are irrelevant.
In a buyer’s market, there’s plenty of room for negotiation and a ‘sliding scale’ of sale/purchase prices – provided your vendor is not in negative equity to start with.
There’s a lot to be said, therefore, for buying a new property from a reputable developer. Not only are you likely to get a better deal overall, you will save on the inevitable remedial works involved with buying ‘second-hand’ and are likely to benefit from lower energy bills due to more efficient and environmentally friendly heating, water and insulation systems. In a perfect world, you may even be able to sell via the developer’s part-exchange deal which will not only save you money and fix your costs, it’ll give you a moving date to work towards.
In the current climate, that’s a win-win.

Space and the city

Following a few days away in London this weekend (2 hours 10 mins on the pendolino makes us virtually neighbours) I found myself back in Manchester on Sunday afternoon enjoying a pleasant stroll through the city centre. As I walked from Piccadilly train station, still looking fantastic since the 2002 refurb, to the almost-completed St Peter’s Square Metrolink stop, I congratulated myself on having had the good fortune of being born and brought up in this amazing city.
As exciting and vibrant London is, I am always pleased to get back home to Manchester, and its somewhat more comfortable, less frenzied atmosphere. In recent years that pleasure has only grown as the city has undergone its transformation, starting at the bottom end of Deansgate and flowing wonderfully from Castlefields through to the Northern Quarter and now Ancoats.
Along with the explosion of trendy bars, independent shops and contemporary apartments (FYI – still looking for a two-bedroom with parking near to Piccadilly Basin), has also come a new found respect for the gaps development leaves behind – open space. The “public realm” as it is referred to, has gone from being that-bit-next-to-the-building, left over for the council to look after, to an important part of the planning and design.
Last week I was one of those property professionals invited to the Insider Business Breakfast event at the recently completed 1 New York Street (or the swanky new office block on Mosley Street as you might know it) to hear from Bruntwood CEO Chris Oglesby and 1 New York street’s architect Steve Quinlan, from Denton Corker Marshall.
For both, the public area around this expression in glass and concrete is almost as important as the internal design. Both too agreed Manchester’s public spaces – from Piccadilly Gardens to Albert Square – have set the bar high for urban planners hoping to combine functional thoroughfares with enjoyable areas for people to meet and rest.
So London, fun as it was, you can keep your Trafalgar Square and its pigeons, and I’ll leave Leicester Square to the crowds. I’ll trade you for the cozy canal-side basins of the Bridgewater, the Triangle’s windmills and plasma screen, the architect designed wind-trap that is Spinningfields, and even the melee of Market Street, and say roll on the Christmas markets and drinking hot chocolate in the street.

Life before t’Internet!

Tasked with writing a fairly technical case study this week, I began to wonder how on earth this was possible before the advent of the Internet. Fortunately for me, I began my career in PR just as the Internet had started to become ‘the must have’ business tool. At my finger tips I’ve always had access to more information than I could possibly ever need and within seconds of typing a confusing three letter, technical acronym into a well-known Search Engine, its meaning no longer had me stumped. Just how much we rely on the Internet was brought home to us here at BPN yesterday when our Internet service went down due to a fault with our ISP. Panic was in the air as colleagues quickly realised that without the Internet they simply couldn’t do their jobs. In fact many fled the building in a hurry so that they could carry on working online at home! How on earth did we cope before it was invented?

Join the conversation or others may steal your voice

There could be a rude awakening for communications types over the coming weeks. Google’s new Sidewiki has the tag line “Contribute helpful information to any web page”. In short it allows any Google toolbar user to make comments about any page. These can then be displayed directly alongside that page by any Google toolbar user that chooses to view them. That’s any of your web pages…..

Wow.

Control of the contents of the browser window has now been handed over to public opinion (well not quite but..) Imagine the airline that charges for “online checkin” whose web site is adorned with reams of comments about “watching for the hidden charges” or the retailer with delivery problems whose site is encircled with horror stories. The damage could be enormous.

It’s only a beta and will certainly evolve – but if you are not fully engaging with your web-savvy target audiences, then now would be a great time to join the conversation.

Airline PR meeting makes the news

Here at Bell Pottinger North we get under the skin of our clients’ markets and learn as much as we can about how their particular sectors operate and the issues that they face.

One of our areas of expertise is transportation and, in particular, the aviation sector and it was this insight that appealed to a ‘regional manager’ who called the office for help with the launch of his new airline, ‘Island Airways’.

Only the meeting didn’t quite turn out as we’d hoped as the Manchester Evening News went on to explain:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1137415_teenage_air_tycoon_trickster_crash_lands

X factor contestant gets my vote

If like me you are a sucker for Saturday night telly then you will have been watching the recent X Factor auditions. These can be both hugely entertaining and quite frightening all at the same time. Wannabe Whitney Houstons and mini Mariah Careys sing their souls out to four fearsome judges (well, Simon Cowell) in the hope of securing a six figure record deal. One recent episode that caught my attention featured 21 year old Scott James – a young man who suffers from Autism. Aside from going to school, Scott hadn’t been out of his house in seven years because of his fear of people. It wasn’t until he met his singing teacher that he developed a passion for music which he wanted to share with others. As someone who works with the Witherslack Group, who provide a diverse day, residential and 52 week system of education and care for children with special needs, I am all too aware of the ignorance and fear surrounding special needs. What was great about this audition was that it gave autism an identifiable face and showed that special needs should not be a barrier to fulfilling your dreams. Scott was phenomenal and got four yeses from the judges. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how he gets on in bootcamp. What a fantastic role model for other youngsters with SEN and everyone else for that matter. Go Scott Go – you’ve got my vote!

Beside the seaside or not

This is the first Liberal Democrat conference I have not attended since 1992 and hence I’m away from the bubble that seems to cut you off from the real world for a week. But watching it via Twitter, Facebook and online provides all the debate and comment but without the late night gossip which let’s face it is the most interesting thing that goes on.  Over the years I’ve spent many an hour “down in the bar” writing speeches, planning leadership and presidential campaigns and briefing journalists. The main thing I’ve noticed this year is how the appetite for something interesting to happen is so great that so much is taken out of context. The reality is that from where I’m watching from it’s been a fairly mixed bag although Vince Cable’s speech was well received further enhancing his credibility and reserving his place at the front of the battle bus. The blog of the year awards curse has struck again with Costigan Quist closing down Himmelgarten Cafe and the big news tonight is who’s taking my place to compere the famous Glee Club.  Leading hundreds of delegates in singing “We Shall Overcome”  just isn’t the same following on Twitter. . . PS The Liberal Democrat conference isn’t the only thing happening in Bournemouth this week with one of our clients set to launch a significant project.