Screwfix

[Paul Williams]

Following recent discussions, this is quite relevant:

[a]

never realised they were part of B&Q!

[Ric]

Not really - they are part of Kingfisher, of which B&Q are also a part

[:::Jerry::::]

Well that explains it, but it's also one of the quickest way of screwing up a mail order company....

[Ed Sirett]

B&Q:Screwfix.

At one time it was held by a pair of 15mm Speedfit couplers.

[Rick Dipper]

[Peter Parry]

As I understand it they had little choice - the local council would not grant planning permission for expanded premises or allow new ones to be built.

[Peter Crosland]

The trouble was that they wanted to build on a site in open country outside the developement limit. Screwfix also said that a central England location would be more efficient.

[Andy Hall]

No choice. The local authority wouldn't allow them to expand their business. The blame lays fairly and squarely there.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[:::Jerry::::]

Not so, are you seriously saying that there was no other site that couldn't have been developed within a distance that could have allowed people to remain employed (even if they needed to travel a few miles), Yeovil isn't exactly without large industry you know ?!

Sound more like an excuse to move to a more central position for countrywide distribution to me....

[Andy Hall]

They wanted to develop on a site that was logistically and economically sensible for them and weren't allowed to do so.

Any business faced with this situation, will then look at the costs of relocating including paying severance if employees are made redundant.

If the numbers add up to a lower cost to move, then that's what they will do.

The primary purpose of a business is to

a) make money for its shareholders,

b) fulfill customer's requirements because that usually leads to (a)

Providing employment is a distant (c).

If that were the prime motivating reason, they would have just done it and not bothered to go through all the architect stuff and make a planning application in Yeovil. Why bother? Very few people would stop buying from them because they lay off 500 warehouse staff, so they could simply have upped anchor anyway so there would be no point in going through the motions of this as a PR exercise.

No excuses are really needed in order to address points (a) and (b) above. it's a commercial business not a charity.

The members of the planning committee are perfectly at liberty not to grant planning permission such that the business could have been expanded in their area. Presumably they have calculated that the loss of 500-1000 votes is not going to cause them an electoral problem.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[IMM]

They can always make an exception when assessing the benefits of such a move. The urban footprint of the UK is only 6.6%, it is not as if we don't have enough subsidised land to make beneficial use from.

Yeovil is not exactly in the boonies. The amount of business they generate would make little difference in location as order volumes would be going to all areas of the UK.

This is another case of planning system that does not serve the people, stupid planners and a bloody-mindedness resulting in a community shooting itself in the foot, as what happened at Vauxhall in Luton. No cars are made there anymore because they could not expand the plant onto available land, so they went abroad.

[IMM]

Also the south west has a higher unemployment problems than the Midlands. Recruiting additional staff around Yeovil would not have been a problem as it is around Stoke.

[Andrew Gabriel]

What? The spending power of 520 people in one area being cut will likely be the end of many other local businesses. I would also imagine Screwfix are likely to have sourced many products/services locally, and those businesses will lose out too. The local economy has probably just lost many millions per year of revenue directly and indirectly from the loss of Screwfix.

[Pete C]

Hi,

It's likely that there were existing or brownfield sites big enough but they could not be redeveloped at a cost acceptable to Kingfisher.

It would be better if regional grants were available to facilitate this, with the local council holding a proportion of the equity in the redeveloped site.

Otherwise any company could build on a greenfield site and flog it on for a profit in a few years.

cheers, Pete.

[IMM]

I'll re-write: Yeovil is not exactly in the boonies. The amount of business they generate would make little difference in the location Screwfix is, as order volumes would be going to all areas of the UK.

Let's say, an extra hour for an artic to go from Yeovil to the north east is not worth talking about. The location was not that important as Yeovil was fine. If they wee in Lewis or Lands End then they may think again. The fact that they applied to expand in Yeovil proved they never thought Yeovil out of the way. If they are moving elsewhere, then one more central to the customers is better.

[IMM]

Only themselves to blame. We this obsession of not building on the countryside so large landowners can stay wealthy. Agriculture in the UK only amounts to 15 billion per year. Many companies exceed that, yet it hogs

68% of land. It looks like the large landowners and their propaganda organs have won the day yet again. We have a country with masses of land laying there not serving the people. Total Madness.

[IMM]

What are the annual figures for screwfix's business?

[:::Jerry::::]

I suspect IMM has, like many other things, little if any real knowledge of the 'parcel' distribution industry if he thinks that the difference between a parcel being sent from Stoke and a parcel sent from Yeovil to the north east is only an hour !..

Err, well I know were both Yeovil and Lewis are and have been to both more than a few times, Yeovil is far more of a problem distribution wise than Lewis.

That is the baffling thing, if they though that Yeovil was not a problem why the sudden move up north, I still believe that a move was on the cards - unless they could wrangled the planning decision to do as they pleased (and thus save a shed full of money literally !), irrespective of local planning policy, in their favour on the backs of 520 jobs...

[:::Jerry::::]

It's nothing to do with land owners, it's to do with not concreting over open countryside, but you would know that if you had ever set foot outside an inner-city...