Presentation from Tony Mernagh, from the Brighton & Hove Business Forum, at the annual State of the City Event in Brighton & Hove, hosted and run by the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce.
18. Gaming is big business 4.7m copies £186m “Brighton has the potential to compete on a global scale with the world’s key gaming centres like Tokyo and Montreal” Editor. Develop Magazine $55bn by 2012
38. NVQ 2+ UK 64.5% SE 68% 75% 76% 73% 65% 73% 45%
39. Office space 468,000 m2 149 Preston Rd Anston House Telecom House Montefiore Hse 153 Preston Rd International Hse
Editor's Notes
2009 was a good year for foreign visitors. Anecdotal evidence suggests that June to August were particularly good.The pound has lost 20% of its value over the past 14 months which should make us an attractive proposition. Hotels, restaurants and retail should be able to capitalise on this and this might compensate to a certain extent for the loss of domestic customers for retailers.Language schools should also do well.
There have already been some big casualties and we are unlikely to see any more big high street names go under in Brighton [to an extend this is because we have fewer high street names than other comparable towns]. Also, to an extent, those that survived picked up trade from those that died.
..... average earnings growth has been slowing for the last four years. Low interest rates [and consequently mortgage rates] have offset this to an extent but household indebtedness in the UK is now the highest in the world and we should prepare for a contraction in UK consumer spending as people try to pay down debt. This will impact on retail sales. The independent sector has actually performed very well throughout 2009 but it is vulnerable to declining consumption.
About 41,000 people work in this sector and, although no one yet knows exactly how much public spending will be cut the Institute for Fiscal Studies has forecast that all departments will have to cut expenditure by 11% to address UK debt.If education and health are to be protected this might increase to 15%
Government grant to B&H Council will be cut by £45m and, although savings have already been identified there is a further £13m to be identified over the next three years.
About 42,000 people work in this sector.But it is not the high-flying city-dealer type of business. It is more likely to be a call centre. It is a bit of a mixed picture with Lloyds TSB announcing about 500 job losses [although the final figure may be less] but Domestic & General recruiting an additional 250.We should anticipate more job losses and take advantage of SEEDA/Job Centre Plus rapid reaction programme to help people seek alternative employment
About 15,000 employees so quite small and they seem to have weathered the recession well. Some sectors e.g. E-learning have thrived as companies reduce their training budgets by cutting face-to-face training and replacing it with online learning which is cheaper. Largely due to the cycle of new hardware development (i.e the recession arrived in the middle of the four year cycle of new consoles development), the gaming industry has also held up well.
