Letters - Saturday January 6, 2021

Loaded with debt stores can’t thrive
See letter from Paul BrownSee letter from Paul Brown
See letter from Paul Brown

The Debenhams problem is an example of what has happened over recent years.

Texas Pacific Group, CVC and Merrill Lynch Private Equity invested £600m of equity to acquire Debenhams in 2003, before trebling their investment in three years after selling off freehold property and cutting costs.

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That left Debenhams with £1bn of debt and little room to improve its bottom-line performance during times of tougher trading conditions.

This is the cause of all of the problems. Rather than being debt-free and owning the majority of their own shop premises, they now found themselves having to pay ever increasing rents to landlords.

Unless the staff at Debenhams suddenly became the most expert salespeople on the planet, they would never make enough money to keep the business healthy on a long-term basis.

Primark has become very successful by stocking an ever changing range of fashion items alongside the normal regular supply of jeans and tops. Other retailers have not adapted to a fast-moving market, often as a result of a close relationship with old British manufacturers who have not invested in the modern machinery to facilitate regular changes of design.

Paul Brown

via email

virus

National (Health Service) lottery

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Having got my letter from the NHS inviting me to book my two anti-Covid vaccinations, I was straight on it.

It was telling me that I could go to a site in Southport or the next nearest was a pharmacy in Lytham. It was here that I smelled a rat, for it was telling me that this pharmacy was just 10 miles away.

Well, if I was a crow that would be fine but, as I don’t have wings to fly over the Ribble Estuary and thus having to go via Preston, there was no way that this was just 10 miles away from where I live.

Anyway, I booked for the Southport site ... but that was before I heard about the South Africa Covid variant being found in PR9, then revised to PR8. Clearly the one sending out this advice lives many miles away from Southport which is in BOTH PR8 and PR9 postcode areas.

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Anyway, as the residents of Southport were being told to stay at home and not venture out, even for food, I was having second thoughts.

I decided to cancel (maybe the Lytham choice was looking a better option). Then I tried to rebook and here is when things turned into the lottery.

The good news was that my nearest vaccination site was now shown as Preston Grasshoppers R.U. Club. Thus I clicked on it and was told that Friday, February 5, was available. Indeed, given my previous attempts at booking, I found it strange that only the one date was being offered. Thus I clicked on what time of day was available and having done that, was asked if I would like to book my second vaccination at the same place. I clicked on that and got a date and time, clicking on the options as they came up. Then I pressed accept and book, only for a pop up notice to appear, telling me that I had a problem with one of the bookings but not telling me which one.

I thus had to go through most of the booking procedure again only for me to be let down as there were no other slots available for either the first or the second vaccinations.

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Back to square one again. This time I saw that the AFC Fylde site was available and finally succeeded in booking both slots for my vaccinations. Oh and yet again, judging by the distance given to that site, I was clearly expected to grow some wings and turn myself into a crow.

Good luck for the rest of you. Oh, and do bear in mind that I was also offered sites in Manchester, Bradford and Birmingham (other parts of the country are available). Wouldn’t it be nice to find where all these sites local to one’s area are to be found listed somewhere, along with the dates/times that they are open (especially ones with restricted opening times) without having to scroll through the NHS vaccination website with its seeming ‘as the crow flies’ distances?

NS

via email

virus

Vaccine stance is ‘mean spirited’

The World Health Organisation has called upon its members to share their vaccines with other countries once they have secured enough supplies to inoculate their most vulnerable groups.

That is the decent thing to do as it will reduce the global death toll from this terrible disease. By contrast, your “hands off our vaccine” stance seems very mean spirited as you are effectively advocating proceeding to vaccinating less vulnerable groups in this area before the more vulnerable groups in other parts of the country.

Thomas W Jefferson

via email