Welcome to Straight Talk, a weekly blog on the subject of business in its widest sense written by David Callam.

David is a freelance journalist, copywriter and general wordsmith, director of CallaMedia Ltd, an editorial services consultancy.

A new posting appears here every Monday morning

To find out what David could do for your business please see the other pages on this website.

Straight Talk 19/08 - Monday, May 12, 2008.

CAR parking is a major aspect of any economy - particularly one that is heavily reliant on retail as a provider of jobs. So any increase in charges is sensitive, especially at the moment when shoppers are turning in their droves to the internet as a source of cheaper goods.

In my hometown of Croydon in south London the previous administration sold a number of centrally-sited car parks – the new owner has announced yet another increase; the third in two years. The present council has tried to make representations, but the owner – a national company – has chosen to ignore its telephone calls asking for a meeting.

So the council has taken to wringing its hands instead and blaming its political opponents for the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. To me that seems like a wasted opportunity. The electorate already knows the shortcomings of the previous administration – that's why voters ousted it at the last election.

What can the present bunch do? Well, quite a lot, if it is prepared to stop political grandstanding and roll up its sleeves. In the short term, the council could grant temporary planning permission to owners of development land in the town centre to use as car parking, providing they agreed to limit their charges – that would increase the competition, which should force higher charges down.

In the longer term, the council could co-operate with Transport for London and town-centre retailers to create a state-of-the-art park-and-ride initiative based around Croydon's first-class train and tram services.

Since there is no chance of expanding the borough’s already overcrowded road network, park-and-ride will become a necessity sooner or later - many would say it is already essential and some would even argue that Croydon is a prime candidate for congestion charging.

The council might reasonably want to replace the town centre’s more inadequate car parks – for example, it might suggest that a 2,000-space car park planned for the roof of the new Park Place shopping development is a replacement for the Allders and Whitgift car parks.

Adding permanent parking capacity in central Croydon is likely to meet stiff opposition from the GLA, even allowing for the recent change of incumbent at City Hall.

ENDS

Straight Talk 18/2008 - Monday, May 5, 2008.

YOU are a quango looking for a sub-contractor to tick a list of boxes on a lucrative government contract. You need to put bums on seats for a series of workshops on international trade.

But you are mindful that your paymasters require you to meet certain social quotas in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, marital status and physical ability - so you write them into a three-page invitation to quote.

However, there is no requirement that the people your sub-contractor gathers from the highways and byways have the slightest interest in overseas trade – so you don't mention it.

Does this sound like a script outline for 'Yes Minister'? Sadly it’s a fact, and I have a copy of a recent ‘invitation to quote’ to prove it.

Overseas trade is an aspect of business in which I have a particular interest. I have crossed continents with trade visits as both an observer and a participant and I know they offer huge potential for smaller and newer firms – indeed, I can quote examples.

And I believe south London has the expertise to deliver first-class support to those who are prepared to take the plunge – again, I can quote examples.

I can also assure you that political correctness and bureaucratic box-ticking have no part to play in the success of international business.

In my experience the people who sign up for trade visits come quite naturally in similar numbers from both genders and in a wide variety of ages and ethnic origins. Some are single parents and others probably have disabilities

Indeed, it is one of the delights of international trade visits that you can learn so much about other ways of life – not only from the places you visit, but also from your fellow travellers.

There are just two qualifications you need for international trade:
*         a product or service for which there is an overseas market; and
*         an interest in visiting that market in order to test it.

Government apparatchiks need ask only three questions of potential exporters:
Do you have a viable business?
Where in the world do you want to take it?
And why?

ENDS

Straight Talk 17/2008 - Monday, April 28, 2008.

ANGELINA PURCELL leaves Croydon Business this week – which is good for enterprise, but not for my hometown. Once free of the administrative and political restrictions that surround Croydon Council and its dependant organisations she will again be able to offer the quality of business support that won her such a well-deserved MBE.

When I first met Angelina she was doing a superb job, encouraging Croydon’s less obvious entrepreneurs to set up their own businesses – she was enthusiastic about her work, with an intensely practical approach to it that singled her out as a ‘doer’ rather than a talker.

She was equally outstanding as a member of Croydon Council’s economic and strategic development unit, where she pioneered overseas trade missions; first to the Caribbean and later to eastern Europe and South Africa.

It was no surprise when she changed employers to run the borough’s chamber of commerce and equally predictable that she should be chosen as the person most likely to revive the fortunes of the lacklustre Croydon Marketing and Development under a new guise as Croydon Business.

She was well rewarded for her work, but she was bound hand and foot by a local authority – elected members and officers alike – with a long-standing penchant for control.

She was instrumental in Croydon’s success in the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) – galvanising essential private sector support for the borough’s bid. But she was bitterly disappointed by the way the council implemented the process and how little influence she and the private sector had in subsequent decision-making.

Now I’m told she is taking up the challenge of establishing a chamber of commerce in Lambeth – a daunting but necessary task in which her understanding of the needs of smaller firms will stand her and her new employer in good stead.

Her departure from Croydon is a loss to the economic development of a borough that has many advantages – not least £70m of government LEGI money – but has so far failed to make best use of them.

Croydon needs people like Angelina with get-up-and-go if it is ever to fulfil its full economic potential, but as long as its establishment continues to smother their initiative, they will follow her lead and go somewhere else.

ENDS

Straight Talk 16/2008 - Monday, April 21 2008.

RETAIL sales are going through the roof: but not in the high street.

Figures released by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) today, reveal that Internet retail sales for the first quarter of 2008 passed the £13bn mark for the first time – a 50 per cent increase on the same period last year.

And that’s not good news for high streets across the country, particularly those – like my hometown of Croydon in Greater London – that are trying to promote large-scale retail development.

The John Lewis Partnership, a store Croydon still hopes to attract into town, says internet trade remained strong throughout March, despite tougher trading conditions in the market at large.

IMRG says it has seen this trend before – when the going gets tough, shoppers go online – so it confidently predicts that e-retailing will buck the trend and continue to grow strongly during the year ahead.

Against this background it is hardly surprising that Croydon has increased numbers of empty retail units in its two existing shopping malls and no progress to report on the one it wants to develop.

The surprise is that there has been no public discussion of plan B – assuming one exists. Croydon Council seems more concerned about presenting itself as London’s third city; a diversion that will not, of itself, bring a single extra penny of inward investment or one new private-sector job into the borough.

Croydon needs to be ahead of the game rather than always bringing up the rear. There are three major sites in the town centre that remain in need of development.

Schemes involving offices are less attractive now as there is about to be lots of grade A space available in The City at bargain prices.

And high street retail faces ever-growing competition from the internet, making a shop in the town centre an expensive alternative – even in the good times – to a well-designed website and a warehouse on the bypass.

Croydon’s existing aspirations are decades out-of-date, despite tinkering by the likes of Will Alsop. Perhaps the present economic downturn is the impetus the town needs for a fundamental change – the council’s new chief executive could do worse than open and lead a wide-ranging discussion on the subject.

ENDS

Straight Talk 15/2008 - Monday, April 14, 2008.

A FARMER with an eye for business is a rare breed. But I came across one recently, developing a new enterprise in the wilds of Kent.

Thanet Earth is turning a large tract of ‘the garden of England’ into a giant farming operation, with seven arena-sized glasshouses designed to meet the increasing demand of shoppers for fresh Mediterranean vegetables all year round.

The company knows the demand exists, it says, because it carried out a series of market research studies: it also knows it needs to supply vegetables in bulk because those same studies confirm that most of us buy our supplies from supermarkets.

Once the company is fully operational it will employ 500 people – a significant number in any local economy, but an agricultural revolution for rural Kent.

The company impresses me, in part because it has adopted such a business-like approach to its initiative. It also impresses me because it is such a positive contrast to the collection of world-class whingers featured on Farming Today, Radio 4’s procession of the demotivated and over-subsidised.

Their complaints fall into three broad categories: we need more government money; health and welfare regulations are too strictly enforced; and supermarkets are conspiring to deprive us of our living.

I know nothing of agriculture: as a rambler I see farms as open-air factories from which farmers do their best to exclude me, despite my having made a substantial contribution to their livelihood. But I can’t imagine how huge reliance on public money and an antediluvian approach to business can possibly encourage innovation.

I’m in favour of lifestyle businesses – I run one – but they must be truly commercial and therefore capable of standing on their own feet financially.

Would it seriously matter if Britain withdrew farming subsidies, as New Zealand did some decades ago? It would certainly lead to consolidation of agriculture into bulk suppliers and those smaller ones that cultivated niche markets. And it would mean that those who couldn’t find a market would go out of business.

You may think that’s merely the way things work in the real world of commerce – I suspect you would have great difficulty convincing many farmers of that.

ENDS

Straight Talk 14/2008 - Monday, April 7, 2008.

THE TRAM is something that makes my home town unique. Croydon is the only district in London to be served by light-rail, which the capital otherwise prematurely pensioned off in the early 1950s.

Now this reliable and popular service is to be fully integrated into London’s public transport system, which could be a good move, if it’s done properly.

The people of Croydon conceived the tram network at a time when there was no regional government in Greater London and each of the 32 boroughs was expected to fend for itself. So Croydon Council championed the tram for Croydon people and introduced it, despite the misgivings of other transport operators, particularly bus companies.

There have been occasional spats ever since, with Transport for London and the bus operators hurling the odd brickbat at Croydon’s semi-autonomous tram company. London’s mayor makes no secret of his affection for buses – he never ceases to praise them for the improved service they offer.

As a regular bus traveller I have searched in vain for these improvements. I can only conclude they must be statistical. And I am concerned that the improvements now being promised as part of tram integration will be equally statistical.

Transport for London is a traditional public service operator – it puts the convenience of its trade unions before that of its passengers. It seems to believe it can solve the capital’s public transport problems with buses alone, despite the fact that they share the same crowded roads as other traffic and are therefore subject to the same delays.

It rejects the idea of a multi-modal approach that would see buses used in outer suburban areas to ferry passengers to trams running parallel to major roads. The trams would offer interchange with park and ride facilities and with suburban and national rail networks.

The biggest single improvement wanted by most Croydon tram travellers is an extension to the existing network, so they can travel further on it. A link with a proposed new tram line from Streatham to the West End seems an obvious example, but at the time of writing Transport for London is not in favour.

ENDS

Straight Talk 13/08 - Monday, March 31 2008.

POLITICS is certainly a career: is it also a business? If so, is it keeping its customers, the electorate, satisfied?

I see it as a service industry, but because it is also a self-regulated monopoly – you can vote for a different party, but not an alternative system – it has a responsibility to impose rigorous checks and balances.

Politicians in Britain are constantly complaining about a lack of public interest in what they do. Are they really surprised? If so they must be more cocooned in the Westminster bubble than many of us suspect.

In the brief glimpse of their rituals that most of us see on television they are little more than a baying mob – is this any way to conduct the business of government?

They cling on to elaborate rules of language and dress that the rest of us have long since consigned to history and they wonder why we laugh at them.

They insist on responding to bells and trouping through lobbies to vote, eschewing the pager or the mobile phone that would allow them to register their opinion, or that of their party, at a distance. They buy and furnish second homes at the tax-payers’ expense and they employ relatives to do non-existent jobs.

If politicians want us to take them seriously they will have to earn our respect by introducing root and branch reform of their own working practices.

Any MP whose constituents commute daily to work should do so himself, at his own expense, so he can truly represent their frustration and press for a better service.

Those whose constituencies are beyond daily commuting should have the use of a modest furnished flat in suburban London – the kind of accommodation they would probably choose if they had to pay for it themselves.

MPs should be employed and paid as civil servants, receiving the same salary increases they award to others: their secretarial support staff, family or otherwise, should be employed and graded in the same way.

I agree with Winston Churchill that democracy is the least worst form of government: that does not preclude it from being run in a cost-effective way that makes best use of 21st century business practice.

ENDS

Straight Talk 12/08 - Monday, March 24, 2008.

THE EUROPEAN Union is the common market in which most of us will ultimately do business.

Within the working lifetime of today’s students it will be as unremarkable to buy and sell in another state as it is to do so now in a neighbouring town. A combination of cross-border takeovers and the rationalisation of regulations make pan-European trading easier by the year.

I was reminded of this wholly desirable development a couple of weeks ago by the staff and students of Titus College in Arnhem who came on one of their regular visits to my home town of Croydon in south London. On this occasion, I agreed to field a question and answer session with the Dutch students.

I knew they would be asking about my job, the town, London or the United Kingdom. But I didn’t have advance knowledge of the individual questions – it seemed to me that the session would be more spontaneous that way. In fact, many of the students wanted to ask about journalism and some of the questions were very searching – I found it an enriching experience.

The self-confidence of these young people was inspiring – here they were on foreign soil conducting an in-depth discussion superbly well in a language other than their own. I fear that our own students of the same age would not do as well.

And yet, if they are to compete in the world of work with their Dutch counterparts, or those from any other European state, they will need the same degree of self-confidence. The present generation of British teachers must embrace the prospect positively if they are to guide tomorrow’s workforce in the right direction.

Britain may have lost an empire, but not the attitudes that go with it. Because English is a universal language we expect others to speak it – we also expect them to adapt their customs and practices to suit ours.

We are mistaken in those outdated notions and we will lose significant amounts of business unless we face up to reality – I will believe we have started to do so when I see a group of Croydon students going to Arnhem to ask questions in Dutch.

ENDS

Straight Talk 11/08 - Monday, March 17, 2008.

DEVELOP a new product or service and sell it overseas – that’s the demand being made of businesses in today’s global market.

And in many cases the businesses themselves are new to the home market, let alone the international one. But this raising of the barrier is the price we pay for free trade and while it’s tough, it is surely better than the alternative.

There is a temptation, in economically troubled times, to retreat behind trade barriers and let the rest of the world go by. The problem is that the rest of the world retaliates – we impose sanctions: it does the same. The result is decades of lost opportunity for everyone.

We have everything to gain from free trade and nothing to lose, even in the short term. If someone overseas can make a product or provide a service more cheaply, our response must be to innovate. Motor manufacturing and electronics are sectors where it took a long time and a great deal of unnecessary pain to learn that lesson.

Today our successful motor manufacturers make niche products of high quality with the most advanced technical specifications using imported production techniques. Our electronics firms do the same. One Dutch company that once made televisions in south London still designs them in Europe, but builds them under licence in the Far East.

Small firms must follow suit. The days have gone when you developed a domestic market first and then looked further afield.  Every business is a potential international trader – some seize the opportunity faster than others.

There are many compelling economic reasons for selling overseas, but as a number of seasoned exporters will tell you: ‘it’s fun too’. And we have an abundance of expertise in innovation and international trading in south London – friendly people ready to help – so why hesitate?

Croydon Chamber of Commerce and UK Trade & Investment are running a free afternoon of seminars on selling bright ideas abroad on Monday, March 31 in central Croydon. For details call the chamber’s events team on 020 8916 2345.

Straight Talk 10/08 - Monday, March 10, 2008.

CLOSE and be damned – the British Post Office is an anachronism and the quicker we stop wasting tax-payers money on it, the better. But we are awash with sentimental nonsense about Post Offices being the heart and soul of their respective communities.

As a nation can we really be serious about this? How can anyone possibly become dewy-eyed about queuing up to buy stamps or send a parcel? Are some people’s lives really so dull that a visit to the Post Office offers them a social lifeline? If so, we certainly need to do something about community development, but not by continuing to subsidise what is supposed to be a commercial enterprise. In truth, even the government has been taking work away from Post Offices because it can find less-expensive ways of doing it.

Now Essex County Council wants to take on the subsidy that government has at last had the courage to withdraw – there’s another reason for not living in Essex. I can’t think of a transaction done in a Post Office that couldn’t be carried out as easily in a bank, a supermarket or on line. I don’t remember the last time I went into a Post Office; I suspect there are millions like me – and that’s the problem.

It’s beguiling to see the issue through a nostalgic haze as part of a golden past that never actually existed. The Post Office belongs to a time when few of us had bank accounts, let alone debit cards or the Internet; so postal orders, giro cheques and benefit books were important.

The Post Office had an unquestioned monopoly of all official means of payment and we had no choice but to queue – I don’t remember thinking of it as a socially defining experience. Retirement pensions were a mainstay of the network, but the steady stream of cash-encumbered elderly became easy pickings for any toe-rag who considered it cool to grab a granny’s purse.

Before local authorities go squandering tax-payers’ money on yesterday’s ways of doing things they should remember why Post Offices find themselves in difficulty – the lack of a discernible market. Most of their former customers have moved on –they should now do the same.

ENDS

Straight Talk 09/08 - Monday, March 3, 2008.

THE IDENTITY of the next president of the United States has become an obsession for the British media. And yet those same journalists devote little or no time to the creation of a presidency for the European Union.

That seems perverse to me, when our experience of the World Trade Organisation suggests that a united Europe can exert a strong influence on the United States – far stronger than any single European state regardless of its perceived special relationship.

We Europeans have no influence over the American presidency, but we do over the one in Europe, even if we are not yet being asked to vote directly for a president. Of course the battle between the Clinton and Obama camps for the Democratic Party nomination is fascinating.

But neither of them – nor John McCain, if he becomes the Republican Party candidate – would be better or worse for Europeans. The future President of the United States will rightly look first and always to the interests of his or her fellow Americans.

History suggests that a strong European president – one with the support of all 27 states of the union – might have had more influence over United States strategy in Afghanistan or Iraq than a supine Tony Blair.

And that might have saved the lives of gallant British service people, as well as leaving us with more money to spend at a time of economic difficulty; and more overseas friends with whom to do business.

The American people must judge the actions of their current president and his political supporters – by all accounts they intend to do so unequivocally later this year.

We need to concentrating on finding an equal and independent voice in international affairs – political or commercial – and we can best do that by being first among equals in the world's largest trading bloc.

ENDS

Straight Talk 08/08 - Monday, February 25, 2008.

CONGESTION is the enemy of commerce. Clogged roads mean deliveries take longer and as time is money, that’s expensive.

Parking restrictions are the obvious answer, but when they are applied in a cavalier way they can damage the businesses they are intended to protect.

As a non-driver I have no sympathy with people who take a vehicle into a crowded town or city centre without good reason. Public transport may not be perfect, but it is usually quicker and always less selfish than wasting limited road space for the convenience of one person and the inconvenience of everyone else.

But we need to make proper provision for those who must use the capital’s inadequate road network for business.

Consider the plight of a contact of mine whose business is supplying pre-prepared food for West End restaurants. He has a production kitchen in south London where he employs a team to pick frozen foods or wash, slice and dice vegetables.

His work saves his customers staff time and, more crucially, space in an area where both are at a premium. But he is being increasingly harried by private-sector contractors who enforce parking restrictions on behalf of the local authorities.

He tells horror stories about improperly served notices that are allowed to accrue additional costs of many times their face value and one particular tale of being ticketed in Soho’s Greek Street by ‘someone from the bottom of the gene pool’ while he waited in standing traffic.

He says there are many streets where there are no loading bays within a reasonable distance of his customers’ premises, forcing his drivers to risk a ticket. But he has been brought to boiling point by a recent series of incidents that have resulted in one of his most valued drivers resigning.

He believes the time is long overdue for local authorities to compel their contractors to distinguish between those who are driving in central London for their own selfish reasons and those who are doing so as an essential part of their business.

I wonder what our London mayoral candidates think?

ENDS

Straight Talk 07/08 - Monday, February 18, 2008.

ENTERTAINMENT is a business – show business – and sometimes very lucrative.

Just ask Lord Lloyd-Webber and friends why they are smiling all the way from the stage door to the bank. But like any other business an artistic one needs to follow the stricture of Simon and Garfunkel and ‘Keep the Customer Satisfied’.

So what’s all the fuss about the loss of grants from Britain’s Arts Council?  A company that is properly focused on its customers (it’s not a dirty word) will replace the income with money from other sources.

Let me cite the example of the London Mozart Players, based – despite its name – in perpetually unfashionable downtown Croydon. This is a chamber orchestra of considerable talent that enjoys, or has enjoyed, the patronage of major international businesses – Nestle is perhaps the best known.

The last of its concerts that I attended – and thoroughly enjoyed – was sponsored by HSBC bank and featured the world-renown musical skills of flautist Sir James Galway. He had some kind things to say about the band on stage and he was equally complimentary when he visited the bank’s guests during the interval.

It is surely ludicrous to suggest that such a well-connected and esteemed group of musicians can’t replace a grant of £160,000 a year once they put their minds to it. In essence, it will be more important than ever to follow the Simon and Garfunkel stricture – like any other successful performance, it’s all about bums on seats.

But the LMP has a loyal following who will happily act as a focus group, allowing it to weave less well-known material into its repertoire without losing ticket sales. There is transitional funding on offer from the Arts Council, which the band should take – but for six months rather than a year.

It should use that time to shake the quango’s dust from its patent leather shoes and accept the added challenges that being a fully commercial operation will undoubtedly bring. I suspect the LMP’s new status will enliven its performances even further, which can only serve to widen its appeal – and just think of all those mind-numbing government forms it will no longer need to complete.

ENDS

Straight Talk 06/08 - Monday, February 11, 2008.

HEATHROW was the subject of a survey that dropped into my inbox last week.

But the short questionnaire was just a box-ticking exercise that didn’t begin to address the matter of whether south Londoners should put yet more eggs into a west London basket.

According to BAA, the company that manages the airport, we now need a third runway at Heathrow if we are to keep pace with the Dutch and the French. Would that be instead of or in addition to the proposed extra runways at Gatwick and Stansted?

The BAA Heathrow website promises continuing construction until at least 2012 – completion of Terminal Five will be followed by a tart up for Terminal One, substantial refurbishment of Terminal Four and then demolition of Terminals One and Two to make way for Heathrow East.

At that point, sometime in 2013, the company will consider AirTrack, a rail link between the airport and Waterloo. So, allowing for construction of the rail link, those of us who travel to Heathrow from south London by public transport will have to endure the present truly dreadful connections for at least another seven years.

By contrast, we already have a fast rail connection to Gatwick – just 35 minutes from Victoria, 30 from Clapham Junction or 20 from East Croydon. I have travelled on intercontinental flights from both airports and Gatwick is infinitely superior, both in terms of the travelling to and from the airport and the quality of service while you’re there.

I’m in favour of introducing the necessary market mechanisms to divide London’s air traffic more or less equally between its three major airports – that would include breaking up the BAA monopoly. The three-site solution is better for most of us than adding ever more capacity at Heathrow and I expect government ministers to face up to the comparatively small number of vociferous individuals and vested interests that will inevitably oppose it.

Meanwhile, government can reduce growing demand for short-haul flights by looking at ways to speed up inter-city trains – making tracks for the new 330kph AGV from French manufacturer Alsthom would encourage more of us to travel further into Europe, or to Scotland, by rail.

ENDS

Straight Talk 05/08 - Monday, February 4, 2008.

THE FOREIGN exchange market in London is a truly awesome operation; the largest of its kind in the world and one on which we are all dependant to some extent.

But I was staggered to learn from an experienced trader that over 98 per cent of the $US25 trillion that moves across the London market every day (more than £200,000 each for every man woman and child in Britain) has nothing to do with businesses needing currency for international deals.

It is speculation by major banks and others, which contributes substantially to their eye-watering annual profits: in this case, the others include insurance companies that use the money they make to boost the performance of pension funds.

However, there are more immediate ways in which the market affects those of us who are not directly involved with it: supermarkets buy on credit – at least 30 days – and sell in cash, so they speculate in the interim. The additional profit they make helps them to compete as vigorously as they do on the retail prices they charge. Without the money markets we would all be paying more for our groceries.

And yet, the whole foreign exchange market is in a permanent state of flux: it moves from second to second, 24 hours a day, six days a week. It is influenced by events around the globe over which nobody has much control, without any one trader – no matter how affluent – being able to dominate it for more than a few hours.

Maybe I’m being naive, but I find it disconcerting that both my short-term and long-term financial well-being and that of my family are substantially dependent on a monetary mechanism that runs on little more than traders’ reactions to situations they don’t fully understand.

So what can I do about it? Nothing, just cross my fingers,whistle and get on with my life.

ENDS  

Straight Talk 04/08 - Monday, January 28, 2008.

INWARD INVESTMENT is a vital ingredient of any dynamic economy.

So it comes as a disappointment to learn that my home town of Croydon in Greater London has only managed to attract three substantive businesses in the past nine months. I assume the council has not been spending much on this aspect of its work, since it is fairly strapped for cash. And the poor result would also suggest that it lacks the necessary expertise.

In Greater London inward investment should be handled at sub-regional level. The idea of 32 boroughs vying with each other in this endeavour is silly – they will cause such confusion that nobody outside the capital, and very few people within it, will have the slightest idea who is offering what to whom.

But the borough councils still have an important role to play in two respects. Firstly, they need to set and maintain a far higher standard of welcome for visitors to their towns – through such things as improved cleanliness and helpful sign-posting.

Last year, when I visited the diminutive city of Gagny in the suburbs of Paris, I was delighted by the show of civic pride demonstrated by clean streets and colourful arrangements of flowers festooned at every lamppost and road junction.

Sadly most of south London’s town centres look anything but loved – and in the case of boroughs like Croydon there is no financial excuse. The council collects a levy of £1m a year from larger companies in the central area for precisely this purpose as part of a Whitehall initiative called Business Improvement Districts (BIDs).

Secondly, borough councils need to monitor inward investment performance at sub-regional level and, if it doesn’t reach the required standard, they need to make the strongest representations at the highest levels of central government.

South London has a stronger story to tell – especially to an overseas audience – than any of its 12 individual boroughs. They will all benefit more from a collective approach than from trying to do it themselves and in the process undermining each other.

ENDS

Straight Talk 03/08 - Monday, January 21, 2008.

I’M BOTHERED about a predicted slump in Britain’s commercial property market.

Not that I have any personal investment in offices and shops, but I am concerned that plummeting prices could wreak havoc in my home town – Croydon, Greater London. According to CB Richard Ellis, the world’s biggest property consultant, the country’s commercial market is facing its worst year since it crashed in the early 1990s.

Forecasters predict that values will drop by ten per cent in 2008, compounding the free-fall that has taken place in the wake of last summer’s credit crunch. Against that background Croydon is still trying to close deals that are crucial to the development of three major sites in the town centre.

There are proposals for an arena or an urban park on one site; and the town’s third shopping mall on another. A mixed development is planned for the third site, but coupled with an expensive refurbishment of a much-loved but anachronistic concert hall and theatre. At the moment, offices play a major funding role in two of the developments and retail is integral to the other.

One of the sites has lain fallow for nearly 50 years; while a second has been largely vacant and a blight on the town centre for more than a decade. At regular intervals over the past three years we have been promised an imminent resolution of each site – in fact, nothing tangible has happened in that time. Now it appears that investors will be more reluctant than ever to buy into schemes that have progressively less chance of finding tenants.

Perhaps the town needs a fundamental change of aspiration. Before the office boom of the 1960s central Croydon was predominantly residential – maybe we should be looking in that direction again. With a series of high quality apartment blocks the town could be offering directors and senior executives a convenient weekday home just 20 minutes by fast train from The City or the West End.

Croydon could be the new Wimbledon – and if that sounds presumptuous to those who know both places, maybe my home town needs to work harder at projecting a positive image.

ENDS

Straight Talk 02/08 - Monday, January 14, 2008.

HOW delighted I am to see some long-awaited recognition for a man who so richly deserves it.

I refer to the award of an MBE to Bryan Treherne in the British New Year’s Honours List. I have known Bryan for a number of years, but I have gotten to know him better in the past 12 months.

It was about this time last year that I told him I was going freelance and I asked for his advice about the business aspects of my decision. Commercially, that proved to be my most astute move so far – he didn’t weigh me down with reams of well-meaning theory, or direct me to a useful web-site. Instead he started referring me to people who could help in the most practical way – by offering me work - and he has gone on doing so regularly over the past year.

I have been on a series of trade visits with him in 2007, to Holland, France and Hungary, and I have watched him extend the same level of courtesy and care to others. He is always the last in a group to go through passport control – in case someone has a problem – and he is the first to share a contact in a foreign city, if he thinks that could be helpful.

Bryan has introduced me to a number of people who are now on my own contact list and  those to whom I have spoken in the past fortnight have been as pleased as I am to see Bryan recognised in this way.

I’m sure he and his wife Betty will enjoy their day at Buckingham Palace later in the year and that they will treasure the medal itself. But I suspect the greatest reward for Bryan is to know how highly his friends and colleagues regard him.

There are two kinds of business advisor: those who talk- and they are ten a penny – and those, like Bryan, who do – and they’re as rare as hens’ teeth. The people who work with Bryan, me included, are privileged to have someone of his calibre in our midst.

*For more details of Bryan’s award and his reaction to it visit the South London Export Club website at www.slec.biz

ENDS

Straight Talk 01/08 - Monday, January 7, 2008.

A WARM welcome to the first of a weekly series of missives on a wide variety of business topics.

Some of you will recall my monthly columns in the south London centred Business News publication, others will even remember those on the business pages of the Croydon Advertiser.

Since I left the newspaper group at the end of 2006 I have seen some of my former readers at networking events. A number have been kind enough to say how much they miss the columns.

And since I miss writing them, it seems reasonable to reintroduce them, but in a form more suited to the 21st century.

In the past 12 months I have broadened my sphere of activities substantially, both in terms of the work I do and the area I cover, so the new column – a weekly blog here on my own website – will reflect that wider perspective. But I continue to live in the Croydon area, so it is inevitable that I will draw some examples from my experiences locally.

I will publish a new edition every Monday and I will write to a wide cross-section of contacts from the Americas and Europe to southern Africa with an abstract of the text in the hope of whetting appetites.

If you prefer not to receive the newsletter you will always have the opportunity to unsubscribe. Naturally, I hope you will choose to accept it, maybe to respond on occasions and even to pass it on to contacts of your own – the more the merrier.

ENDS