Southend businesses slump as almost 200 closed

9:30am Wednesday 6th March 2013 in News

SOUTHEND has shown a steep increase in the number of businesses closed last summer, according to recent research by Duport.co.uk.

During July, August and September last year, the number of companies closed in Southend rose to 199, a 55 per cent increase on the same period in 2011. Businesses start ups also fell by 10 per cent as the town struggles through a double-dip recession.

Southend High Street has suffered since the start of the recession, with the independent handbag store Buzz closing in March 2012, and big household names such as Woolworths, TJ Hughes, JJB Sports and Jessops disappearing. There are still several vacant units in the Victoria shopping centre and the High Street, and just off the High Street in Alexandra Street are two empty former restaurants, the former Il Vicolino and Onyx.

Despite the gloomy figures, David Burch from the Chamber of Commerce is upbeat and warns not to be too alarmist. He said: “There is a lot of vibrancy across Essex and in Southend, and businesses cease trading for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there is no longer a demand for them, or someone else has moved in, and sometimes people decide to have a change because they have had enough of running a business.”

The Duport Business Confidence Report for Southend also showed a reduction in the appointment of female directors, although the number of young directors appointed to new companies is on the rise.
For more information, see www.duport.co.uk/southend

Comments(22)

perini says...
9:53am Wed 6 Mar 13

No surprises there then! I would suggest that the godawful road layouts, a lack of parking and expensive parking in 'car unfriendly' Southend may have deterred a lot of people in using it as a shopping centre. I, along with others, drive to out of town centres with free/cheap parking and also with shops I want to spend money in, rather than the plethora of Pound shops etc.

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Sweet P says...
10:05am Wed 6 Mar 13

Absolutely true. Why travel to Southend and pay exhorbitant fees to park when you can go to Lakeside, park free, good restaurants, cafes, cinema and good selection of shops. No brainer!!

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Alekhine says...
10:23am Wed 6 Mar 13

Bloody spy cars...

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Sean4u says...
10:29am Wed 6 Mar 13

Town centres by their nature *cannot* EVER compete with out-of-town retail parks for facilities for cars. They were built for footfall and the kinds of human densities which are unreachable if many visitors want to bring overweight armoured bubbles with them.

Complaining about the consequences of reckless selfishness - or even suggesting that 'sticking plasters' like free parking will solve the problem - is contemptible.

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heartbeat says...
10:52am Wed 6 Mar 13

Sweet P wrote:
Absolutely true. Why travel to Southend and pay exhorbitant fees to park when you can go to Lakeside, park free, good restaurants, cafes, cinema and good selection of shops. No brainer!!
I usually drive to Bas Fest Park for the cinema. Their "all-day" price on a Tuesday is £3.95 as opposed to £5 in Southend and they show dozens more films. And even more important...their parking is free and easy, unlike rip-off Southend. No brainer!!

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Shoebury_Cyclist says...
11:20am Wed 6 Mar 13

Businesses closing has got nothing to do with whether car parking is 'free', and everything to do with a double-dip recession.

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Cockle says...
11:40am Wed 6 Mar 13

And no doubt the loss of the workers who used to work in the 6 or 7 empty/demolished office blocks in the town centre and Victoria Avenue will have reduced the footfall considerably over the last few years. Those workers must have bought an awful lot of convenience purchases such as sandwiches, newspapers, etc. as well as using the convenient shops in the High Street for lunchtime shopping.

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artytoit says...
11:52am Wed 6 Mar 13

Something is clearly wrong in Southend as it's the opposite in Basildon...
http://www.echo-news
.co.uk/news/10267560
.Record_number_of_bu
sinesses_open_in_Bas
ildon/?ref=la

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Rochford Rob says...
12:44pm Wed 6 Mar 13

Shoebury_Cyclist wrote:
Businesses closing has got nothing to do with whether car parking is 'free', and everything to do with a double-dip recession.
Keep up at the back, it's now a triple dip. I'd certainly have more disposible income were it not for the fact my fuel costs have more than doubled.

The Govt raised 'duty / tax' (I'll leave you to the semantics) on fuel and then have the gall to add VAT on top of that.

So, if I earn £100 the Govt will tax me £40 straight away. If I spend the remaining £60 on fuel, another £48 of that goes in taxation of one type of another.

Therefore £18 worth of fuel has cost me £100. Plus exhorbitant Insurance VEL costs and other 'green tax' bolleaux (which like MMGW) is all a scam to seperate us poor mugs who WORK to support the feckless for whom benefits is now a lifestyle.

How an independant business can possibly get by in conditions like this is anyone's guess. Well, it ain't is it, they are being bled dry into extinction.

As for Southend High Street -what a dump. chewing gum, fag ends, rubbish, fast food wrappings everywhere, plus pigeons (flying rats) chavs, doleites, beggars and scroungers. Ne'er do wells with dogs on string. The list goes on.

It's a dump and the council have the neck to charge the earth for parking - their machines don't give change either - daylight robbery.

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emcee says...
1:10pm Wed 6 Mar 13

Exhobitant rents and business rates, expensive parking and and filthy streets (the High Street is, indeed, rife with chewing gum and rubbish).
Is it any wonder businesses do not survive in Southend.

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Firestormgjc says...
1:32pm Wed 6 Mar 13

There are other businesses apart from shops, and Southend is not just the High Street.

A number of businesses would have been bumping along the bottom for a while before the recession hit, Zombie Companies is the term sometimes used, manageing to stay afloat by increasing their debt and as long as they could scrape enough to service the debt they struggled along.
The recession focussed the banks on who they were lending to which meant that these companies could no longer get secure the funds and slowly sank.

These companies large (woolworths , Comet) or small would not have been of any assistance in helping post recessional growth and could well have taken loans merely to survive which anyother company would use to grow.

The recession has just hastened the demise of weak businesses

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Rochford Rob says...
2:02pm Wed 6 Mar 13

The High Street as a concept is dying.And will get worse. The race to the bottom for customer service and selling Chinese cr@p will keep the chavs happy for a short time. Jessops,HMV and Blockbuster were victims of technolgy, but the average High Street is full of nail bars,kebab shops ,charity shops and other cr@p. Specialists stores and people selling a quality products whilst being knowledgable and polite died off some time ago.

Plus, there's not much I can't buy from the comfort of my desk.

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Alfiee says...
3:42pm Wed 6 Mar 13

Southend high street will be dead soon enough. And housing will be built. I will not pay parking charges to walk around a town shopping, when I have to worry about my handbag being dipped. Looking over my shoulder all the time I do not feel safe in Southend High Street. Out of town shopping for me free parking and all undercover.

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RobertFS says...
3:52pm Wed 6 Mar 13

Alekhine wrote:
Bloody spy cars...
nothing to do with spy cars which help prevent abuse by irresponsible people (very often parents/grandparents who won't let their fat offspring walk.)but down to the problems highlighted by 'perini' & 'sweet p' & 'emcee'.
council please read!

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Carnabackable says...
4:10pm Wed 6 Mar 13

perini wrote:
No surprises there then! I would suggest that the godawful road layouts, a lack of parking and expensive parking in 'car unfriendly' Southend may have deterred a lot of people in using it as a shopping centre. I, along with others, drive to out of town centres with free/cheap parking and also with shops I want to spend money in, rather than the plethora of Pound shops etc.
Forever the optimist, is Pisrenni

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asbo in a coma says...
4:59pm Wed 6 Mar 13

let's face it retail's gone and it ain't ever coming back. it's not cyclical, it's structural

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jolllyboy says...
5:12pm Wed 6 Mar 13

Why go to Southend when Rayleigh and Chelmsford have more buzz and better parking facilities.

It will only get worse when the new retail parks open near the airport as will the lethal roundabout at Tesco and Kent Elms junction.

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firedog says...
5:55pm Wed 6 Mar 13

emcee wrote:
Exhobitant rents and business rates, expensive parking and and filthy streets (the High Street is, indeed, rife with chewing gum and rubbish).
Is it any wonder businesses do not survive in Southend.
Not to mention the the mad cyclists you have to watch out for.That the police
ignore.

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Letmetryagain says...
10:30pm Wed 6 Mar 13

A lot of businesses fail, because those involved haven't done their market research. It's a shame when people put a lot of money into starting up a shop, which you know won't last more than six months. When they have the wrong product, at the wrong price, and in the wrong location.

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echoforum says...
12:52am Thu 7 Mar 13

Just a couple of units empty in Vic Plaza?..I don't think so!

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southchurchroad says...
8:41am Thu 7 Mar 13

Less job vacancies, more unemployment, less people to spend money so more businesses will go bust. But hey, rather than encourage growth, southend council would rather get another pile of kickbacks from developers to build more homes that the infrastructure cannot cope with, because the kickbacks and bribes from the constant overpriced "road improvements" to nowhere.

But hey, such is the state of governance in the UK. No party is going to be any better.

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perini says...
12:59pm Thu 7 Mar 13

Shoebury_Cyclist wrote:
Businesses closing has got nothing to do with whether car parking is 'free', and everything to do with a double-dip recession.
Strange how business is booming in Basildon then!

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