The Framers Forum

I keep hearing that the govenment says that we are coming out of recession and that the economy is growing. Unfortunately, I have not seen any evidence of this here in Deepest Devon.

I know that some things take a while to filter through to rural Devon, but are any of us seeing any signs of improvement? Just wondering!

You are quite right Mark. Despite the rhetoric coming from the media there seems little sign of improvement. We had the worst April in 3 years and May is not off to a great start, although the quality of work is good, but the volume is lower.

It's not just our business either (up here anyway) since Mrs D has a good friend who is an interior designer and she had the worst month on record! Another guy (customer) has a contract cleaning company and his business was so bad in April that he was very close to laying off staff - the first time during the whole recession. He has said that it has now picked up a fair bit.

I think if you are outside London, times are still very hard.

I agree alot the media exaggerate with the Economy. Our framing business has been up and down. Just battling through really

Britain's economy posted its fastest annual growth in more than six years in the first quarter and is expected to grow about 3% in 2014.

However this isn't the picture in our part of the West Country where we're finding trade spasmodic. April and May were not good, caused partly by a lack of tourists.We supply quite a number of other galleries and shops across the South West and it seems to be a similar story everywhere.

Although the imminent interest rate rise will benefit some of our customers,I fear it will hurt a lot of others.
This so called 'recovery' would seem very fragile. Our businesses sit at the end of the market where customers need spare cash and the confidence to spend it.

But there is an an election looming and one would hope the economy will be further primed, as they say 'Things can only get better!'

I think we have to be content with the fact that no matter how bad things are they could always be worse.

The main thing IMHO is not the economy as such but public confidence. One doom-laden media report and people get the wind up. So whereas at one time they would just go out and buy something with alacrity, they exercise caution and hesitate to see what happens. The combined effect is that shops report that takings are down which in turn leads to more doom in the media.

I would say at the moment the media is full of better news about the economy but it would seem, that at least in this neck of the woods, it hasn't yet had the desired effect on customer confidence

Just heard on the radio that wages are rising quite quickly now, this could help to turn more money in the economy from a retailers point of veiw, but might not be such good news from an employers point of veiw!

you have a wonderful singing voice NYAF, brought a tear to my eye.

Certainly wasn't true of Bovey Tracy last weekend! It all seemed very bouyant

I've found it a lot better during the last two, or three weeks, but it has been a very difficult start to the year and I'm not sure if the current improvement is just a blip, or something more positive. Time will tell!