Screwfix

[Peter Crosland]

Wrong! The blame is for the government that makes the policy that local planning authorities have to follow.

[Andy Hall]

They do have some discretion within their local plan, but equally I am not averse to the suggestion that central government meddles where it has no business to do so as we have recently seen.

.andy

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[Tony Bryer]

You're assuming that their existing facility just rots. It would be very surprising if it wasn't taken over by some other business who would presumably employ a similar number of people.

[Grunff]

AIUI their Yeovil site will be used as their head office.

[IMM]

If the local authority wanted Screwfix, they would have found them land. It is that simple.

[:::Jerry::::]

And thus a completely different employment requirement.

[Andy Hall]

So?

Life's tough. They aren't in business to provide employment.

.andy

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[:::Jerry::::]

In some ways you are quite wrong, they can't be in business if they don't (considering they are hardly in the 'one man band' league), and s**te employers (or those that are perceived as such) never get the best people for the job IYSWIM.

If they wanted to up stick (which I still recon was their end goal, for distribution reasons) they should have been open about it and not try and blame local planning regs etc.

[Andy Hall]

I don't know whether they are a s**te employer or not. Up until the recent debacle, I have always found them to give good service. We have periodically had people here complaining about deliveries that weren't the next day, although many of these were where people had gone for the free delivery which is a best efforts affair anyway.

Screwfix and B&Q have become the leading suppliers in their fields in the UK and B&Q is no. 3 in the world. That isn't achieved or maintained by not running a business reasonably properly.

A warehousing business probably doesn't need good people (apart from at management level) but people that are good enough to get the job done.

Do customers really care about what Screwfix does with their employees who are made redundant? Not really. It happens every day and may make the news for a short time but is then rapidly forgotten.

Do shareholders care? Remember that it is quite likely that people with pension and other savings schemes are quite likely to have Kingfisher shares in the portfolio. Answer no, as long as it remains a good investment.

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter because the impact of the loss of 500 jobs in Yeovil is not going to have any long term effect on SF's business anyway, either financially or by customer retention. One or two people might not buy from them for a while, but that's it.

In that scenario I see no reason at all why they would need to go through an elaborate charade of blaming it on the local authority. All that that achieves is to raise the profile of the whole issue and make people wonder. Plus it costs money to have plans put together, go through all the bureaucracy etc. It's much easier to simply announce that they are closing one facility and opening another. The public interest in that would have lasted 10 minutes,. If the motivation was to move anyway, the latter would have been the obvious course of action.

.andy

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[IMM]

It was the fault of the local authority as Screwfix wanted to stay in Yeovil, they submitted plans to expand and were turned down.

They did that.

[Peter Crosland]

I think the local authority was quite keen but had their hands tied in various ways as to availabilty of a suitable site and within a reasonable timescale.

I wish it was that simple but it seldom, if ever, is as anyone who has experience of the planning system knows. If South Somerset District Council tried that the application would simple be called in by central government.

[Peter Crosland]

Just double checked and the application was not refused. Screwfix withdrew the application.

[IMM]

government.

..and it would be looked at and the government would say yes. Loose jobs?No government likes that, except Thatcher, who revelled at loosing them.

[IMM]

Why? Did they get word that problems would occur giving delays? No one spends that sort of money to submit a plan then forgets it.

[Andy Hall]

Looking at the local authority web site, it appears that two applications were made and withdrawn three months apart in 2001. One was next to a trading estate.

Perhaps they were simply told that permission would not be granted.

Somewhat academic though.

.andy

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[Grunff]

But the planning issue was at the very least one of the factors in their decision; most likely the major factor.

There are big problems with relocating an operation of this size, recruiting and training a new workforce is a particularly big one. It isn't a decision that is taken lightly or on a whim.

There is a big problem with planning in the South West, where there seems to be a focus on 'keeping it pretty for the tourists at the expense of real industry'. I find this incredibly annoying, since it stifles business and increases the region's reliance on tourism. Relying on tourism as your major industry is a) extremely dangerous and unstable, and b) a terrible long term strategy which can only lead to the region's economic decline.

[:::Jerry::::]

The point is, it costs a great deal of money to move buildings let alone to a different part of the country (and it's not done at the drop of the hat either), what I'm saying is that I suspect SF knew that they would not get their planning application though but still applied in the hope that the loss of 500 local jobs would twist the arms of the planners and that *if* it had gone through it would have allowed SF to save a considerable amount of money IYSWIM. It would also make life easier when dishing out redundancy notices, they were able to just say 'Not our fault, sorry'.

For little real cost they have been shown as a company who were, at least on the surface, probably wanting to employ more local staff (directly or indirectly), are a successful company who are expanding and not at fault when chucking making over 500 people redundant - all very much the win, win, win situation...

Perhaps I'm just a cynical old sod ?! :~)

[:::Jerry::::]

They could have, but not at their (then) current location, if they wanted to enlarge the building. There was nothing to stop them developing another site locally AIUI.

Yeovil is not exactly without large 'heavy' industry you know, I suspect they have a thriving 'rotary club' you know IMM....

[Huge]

It's "losing", and jobs propped up by Government subsidy aren't real jobs anyway.

[Andy Hall]

Interesting idea. Although they did attempt two applications, which would be seem to me to be a lot to do to achieve that.

I'm not sure that most companies are hugely bothered about that.

It seems like a lot to do just to achieve that.

There seem to be a number of planning applications in the works for various things including an office extension (although of course that could be let out), so it isn't as though the area is being vacated.

I guess we'll find out over the coming months.

.andy

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