Service industry growth offers some relief amid economic gloom
This article gives me the angle I need for my Retford update story. It profiles economic growth in the service sector.
It explains: “Growth in Britain’s service industries unexpectedly picked up to a four-month high in July, providing some relief after a glut of disappointing economic news.
“The CIPS/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index for services rose to 55.4 last month, the highest since March and up from 53.9 in June. City economists had expected a slowdown to 53.2. Both the new business and business expectations balances rose too.
“The data comes after a solid report on construction on Tuesday, but dire figures from manufacturers on Monday.”
You may recall my comment that nearly all employment apart from retai had been lost from Retford. On that basis this growth may stand to do the town and many others like it little good. I could however be wrong – although I suspect in most market towns – the last decade has seen the loss of local employment, higher levels of commuting and ultimately therefore less local sustainability.
Now is your chance to have your say based on your local experience – I have posted via this link a list of all towns in England with a population between 10,000 and 40,000 population. Follow it – find your town and let me know whether you think the opportunities for local employment in it (including retail) have grown, stayed the same or declined.
I will give this two weeks to run and then we shall see whether my rant was jutified both in terms of the one town I picked on and more generally in relation to the evolution of our market towns.