Online shopping is not the main problem for town

DECLINE of Loughborough town centre.

While the local business community and the Charnwood Council have wrestled with this problem for a decade and made no impression on the problem perhaps it is the wrong analysis which is not helping.

Is it customers who do not wish to visit the town centre and spend because they prefer going online to order their purchases? I do not think that this is the main reason. This demonstrates a false analysis.

A percentage of items are bought online but the real problem for more than decade has simply been a sharp decline in demand.

The economy has failed to maintain people’s living stand- ards. With a decline in living standards it is inevitable that consumer demand declines.

Am I inventing this analysis? No. On Tuesday, July 24 the Resolution Foundation produced new research which indicates just that.

Millions of “just about managing” are no better off today than those in 2003.

The remarkable income stagnation for so many reveals that the economy has been failing to generate income for people over many years despite record levels of people in work.

In 2003, households on the lower half of incomes typically earned £14,900.

In 2016/17 that figure had fallen to £14,800 the research shows.

Even with inflation at low levels of only a percent or two over 15 years that will eat away at the ability to maintain living standards. Add to that a loss of another £100 per year and you can see the problem.

Just to add further to this decline many people who had reasonable employment at the Brush now don’t have these jobs.

The Brush did employ 8,850 people now it is only employing 300.

Yes new jobs have been created but they do not pay good wages or employ people on reasonable terms and conditions.

Charnwood is in the East Midlands and this has always been close to the bottom of regional pay averages in England and still is.

During this period of time the percentage of the national income accrued by the top five per cent has increased in leaps and bounds whilst income going to 95 per cent of the population has declined.

Neo-liberal economics and trickle-down theory has failed working people.

The deficit was not created by working people or people on benefits. It was the bankers who caused the world crisis with their invention of elaborate financial products. When these failed the world was left holding the debt.

Have I invented that? Better read Gillian Tett’s book “Fools Gold”. She is an editor of the Financial Times. Hardly your archetypal left winger.

Keith Clarke