ECCOnoob

What regular customers? That's the point. Those customers didnt give a hoot about showing loyalty when they found their cheaper alternatives abroad. They were more than happy to flock to the Med or Eastern Europe on their bargain basement package deals offered by super sized brutalist concrete jungle Hotel complexes doing their poolside fish and chips with a pint of watered-down lager for €2.99. Now suddenly people are forced to take holiday back within the UK, they are realising what the real cost of offering such services are. They are seeing the impact when a UK business (corporations or otherwise) can't have the same advantages of buying power, mass marketing cheap property, cheap land rate, cheap utilities and cheap unregulated wages gained by those in some locations abroad. It's not all about simply dismissing it is rip off britain. There are far too many consumers who seem to want the world for next to nothing prices. There seems to be a complete distortion as to the true value of things, particularly anything that's in the smaller, local, more independent type of business. I often see lots of faux campaigning and championing about people who say they are prepared to pay increased prices for a fair wage to staff.....Lots of rhetoric about buying British..... lots of discussion about people be more conscious, supporting their local businesses, being prepared to pay more for for more local, personal service and better quality etc. Lets see how much people put their money where their mouth is literally. As the world starts reopening let's see how quickly those bargain basement all-inclusive brits in the Sun resorts fill up.

Exactly the same thing that happened 100 years ago when there were beggars and alcoholics and vagrants and miscreants on the streets. Can we stop talking as if this is some new concept.

Well said. People need to realise that businesses are not all run by greedy corporations ripping off the "ordinary working man"

Oh god the humanity!!! Vagrants asking for money - I'm so shocked and distresed!!!! Good grief someone think of the children!!!!! What on earth is wrong with people. When did we become so overly sensitive. Why is every unsightly part of life constantly blown out of all sense of proportion and reality . I have worked in the city centre for nearly 30 years. I have at least half a dozen of my friends and colleagues who live in the city centre and never had experience of anything like the levels of harassment, encounters and supposed intimidation described by some people on here. There has always been beggars and vagrants drunkards and homeless people. Perhaps, just perhaps, in the wake of quiet high streets and empty stores it may be more visible. But let's not pretend this is some mass out of control crisis where people cant go from shop to shop without being accosted at least a dozen times.... It's nonsense. Perhaps people would prefer it if every city street, public communal square, park space and precinct was all gated, barricaded and controlled by heavy security so that only those with authorised reasons, financial means and genuine business can access them. That would be better right? Interesting then, that when landlords tried to do that with private apartment blocks, courtyards, playground spaces and gardens or try to install physical devices to stop vagrants loitering around doorways or sleeping in window ledges or messing up alcoves the Guardianistas kick off about the disgusting behaviour of the greedy corporate monsters saying it's unfair to poorer members of society.What do people actually want? If it's a open, public street, in an open public city centre some of those members of the public will be the less desirable ones. That is a fact of life.

Well if that's true, you're elderly neighbour certainly has had a pretty sheltered life. Let's get real here. Beggars, drunkards, vagrants are not some new fagalled concept only existing in the past 10-years. Good grief I remember plenty of times back in the day when Peace Gardens, Balm Green, Fiitzalan Square were notorious no go area after hours, Pond Street bus station, Hole in the road and the various underpasses around the city were all a risk of being bothered by all manner of Tramps and drunkards and panhandlers. Sounds like they have stuck rose tinted glasses to their face and are just looking for excuses.

Here we go again. Any tiny mention of the word development in the city and we have the same tired old comments from the same dinosaurs stuck with their rose tinted glasses harping on about life in the past being all sooooo much better. Waaa waaa don't like change. Bring back Redgates and Hole in't Road. The city, its purpose and it's entire features are evolving. The world has moved on beyond just bloody shops. Bring on the next generation of yuppies in their poncey flats I say. They are the ones investing and bringing money into this place to drag it kicking and screaming into the modern world.

Ahhh.... so you can't actually prove he and they owe anything within the definitions and mandatory enforcement of our tax laws then. Cut the Waffle. Why don't you just be honest and say what you really mean....... YOU think they should morally forced to pay more tax than the law says they have to simply because "they rich init". Well unfortunately we don't have a court of morals and that's not how it works. Like all other successful organisations they are not in the habit of paying extra money when they don't legally have to. Thats the reason companies employ very skilled clever lawyers and accountants to make sure they know the rules inside out. It's business. Don't know why are you singling out these particular organisations. Any business will do exactly the same. If you don't like the system, go complaining to the people in Parliament who can actually do something about it.

Define "reasonable". What sort of comparators are we looking at here and what circumstances? I always have concern with any sort of thread like this that there is a lot of rose tinted nostalgia regarding what prices seaside resorts, accommodation and caterers should be charging. There seems to be a distinct lack of awareness that the world has moved on since the black and white days and there has been significant rises to businesses in not only wage costs, but supply of materials and stock and even rent prices. Many of those overheads are significantly above foreign holiday resorts which may not have the same land value or even minimum wage regulations. I've seen quite a lot of vicious complaints across the internet from people talking about "rip-off" holiday companies or seaside resorts charging a "bomb" because they can. But let's face it, most of these businesses were on the brink of collapse due to their forced closure during covid lockdown and before that were feeling the squeeze thanks to the abundance of cheap package holidays abroad. Given the fact that we are now right in the peak of summer holiday season and many of these UK resorts have finally got an opportunity to tap into a little bit of captive audience - do we really blame them for putting up their prices which would be natural course of supply and demand in any event. Now, I know that not everyone lives comfortably and to some every penny matters. But there has to be some balance here. Eating out is never going to be same outlay as cooking at home. That seaside hotel in the middle of peak season is never going to cost the same as some generic chain travel tavern stuck out in the back end of the A47 booked on a wet Tuesday in November. At the end of the day it's simply business. They are not charity and they are there to make a profit. I can guarantee most of us customers don't go to our place of work without renumeration. Neither will the holiday businesses and their staff.

I don't agree. Crime has evolved and the police have to evolve with it. People are no longer walking around these days with great wads of cash stuffed into their back pocket ripe for a mugging. Cars are no longer flimsy rust buckets which can be broken into with a bent paperclip and started with a breadstick. Drug deals are no longer done on street corners by shady men in long coats and suspicious handshakes involving transfer of little plastic packets. Assault and physical harm are becoming less likely to be played out in the middle of the street for all to see and far more likely to be happening in the relative quiet of domestic Suburbia behind closed doors. Technology has evolved. We are often described as one of the most surveilled nations on Earth. Even basic domestic dwellings are commonly becoming equipped with with CCTV cameras, connected to smartphones and automatic monitoring. The traditional crimes so to speak are in decline with a significant explosion in the world of hacking, fraud and cybercrime which I would argue deserves more police hours than some 'Bobby on the beat' aimlessly wandering around in case they spot something by chance. All that really ever does it's provide some faux sense of reassurance. I'll be interested to knuckle down the actual practical benefits over other policing methods. Back to the development under discussion, compared to it's predecessor, this block will have have its own security concierges, cameras, lighting, fences, secure entrances.... all of which I would say is far better deterrent then the limited impact of 'visible policing'.

Nope that is just an old cliche. Go try buying some basic white goods from a retailer in spain and see the price almost double for the same basic brand you get over here. Go fill up your grocery basket at your average supermarket in the States, add on the sales tax and then do the price comparison. They might do the gigantic size portions but you will be surprised how much more the net cost can be compared to our own stores. Go to places like the southern French coastline, Italian Lakes, Iceland, Scandinavian countries and see the prices of basic restaurant items or drinks in bars. Yes our property prices may be booming at the moment compared to other parts of Europe, particularly Eastern Europe - but take a look at why most of the local residents living tiny apartments rather than houses with a bit of land at the back and front. Take a look at the wage discrepancies around the world and particularly places where there is still no minimum wage. It is all far more nuanced tham some simplistic catch-all phrase. A strong standard of basic monetary education and personal economic responsibility is what many people in this country are lacking. A little bit too much "I want" "I demand" and "I expect" with too little consideration of who, how and when exactly is going to be paid for. The problems are far more deep-rooted than just complaining about increases to prices.

^^^^^^ what they said. So thank christ some "scumbag" "disgraceful" "greedy" private enterprise developer has taken a punt in doing them up, making them attractive, getting them on the obvious demand filled market and breathing some life and populus into the building once again....otherwise it would simply become one of many empty, decaying eyesores around the city. Bring on the gentrification I say. Sick of all the horse crap about ordinary homes for the ordinary working people. Most of those said ordinary folk started choosing not to live there or moving out 30+ years ago. Most of the ones that were left were just the type of morons who didn't deserve such accommodation after they decided to turn what was at one time an architectural revolution elevating hundreds of families out of back-to-back or almost slum like conditions into a publicly funded modern day crime ridden dump. Can't have it both ways. The world has moved on. I fully embrace our next generation of younger people with their much more ambitious and less backward thinking mindset. The entire world of work has changed dramatically over the past decades and even more so in the past 18 months. I'm sick of certain types of people harping on about the past and pandering to some tiny fraction of so called "real worker" class who have failed to evolve with the times. Things cost money. If people want better things than they need to prepare to pay for it. Now let me be very clear before certain types of people jump all over me. I am not against the notion that everybody has the right to a roof over their head. I am not against the notion that everybody has a right to a minimum standard of living. I am not against the notion that the state should be there to provide a basic welfare provision to its citizens. However, that certainly does not translate to some automatic right to live in a primary location in primary real estate a short hop away from the centre of town.

Fair point. But to be honest when I was in Leeds store it was 2 oclock on a Saturday afternoon. Personally, if that is not peak shopping hours I don't know what is. As I said in my earlier post, Primark was booming as was Harvey Nichols at the completely other end of the the price spectrum. I query what those shops were doing on Saturday afternoon to get the crowd in which JL seemingly wasn't.

By punishing them to 33 years of imprisonment... By monitoring every aspect of their behaviour and constantly observing what they are doing and why they are doing before making a very detailed assessment on suitabulitu for released under strict criterion... By offering them a second chance to return to life as a reformed citizen but still subject to very strict licence conditions. How would you rehabilitate them?

If they do it puts them in the same gutter level as the criminals they seek to 'vigilante' punish and should quite rightly be forced to face the same justice system as the exoffender they are attacking. There are lots of things at those girls are no longer able to do. There are lots of things that the victim of a drunk driver cannot do after they are hit. There are lots of things that a victim of corporate negligence cannot do when they are catastrophically injured. There are lots of things that a victim of of medical negligence cannot do if some doctors made a mistake..... However, that does not mean we resort to some neanderthal level of retaliation. Our justice system is based on punishment AND rehabilitation. It is based on root cause and investigation and preventative measures and lesson learning and restoration. Is sort of system which sets us apart from all the less civilized Nations in the world who even today are conducting abhorant acts which we hypocritically repel against when we see it on the news but have some of us champing at the bit to bring them back into our society whenever the mood suits. We've evolved and are better than lock up and leave them to rot.

What a disgusting vile human being you are. Clearly one of the moronic lock him up and throw away the key brigade who is convinced that nobody can possibly be rehabilitated or feel remorse for their crimes. So you feel the only way you will be satisfied that this offender is truly remorseful for their actions is by proceeding to watch them take their own life. That is the sort of barbaric 'eye for an eye' attitude we are supposed to be evolved away from in this supposed civilised society. Posts like yours just go to further emphasise why it's absolutely vital that important judicial decisions are kept as far away as physically possible from the the emotive, reactionary, ill-informed and quite frankly idiotic general public opinion.

Because "the public" are morons. "The public" are emotive and reactionary. "The public" don't want and cannot take time to fully consider a broad range of opinion, full circumstances, lengthy detailed submissions, complex issues, the wider picture of the impact of their decisions...... If it was up to public opinion it would be swayed by whatever newspaper someone chooses to read or what sort of Internet crowd they follow. If it was up to public opinion, it will be dominated by those who shout the loudest and highly highly likely to be leaned towards the lock them up and throw away the key brigade. That's just the sort of narrow-minded black and white result that "the public" would apply to such circumstances. Thankfully we don't have the public deciding such important issues. It is decided by a person. A person who has that skill, experience and ability to consider all of the nuance points and make an informed decision. Something that is woefully lacking by some man on the street walks into a booth and puts a cross in a box. At least when it is a jury trial the selected members are there, they are stuck in that position with no option but to hear all see all and make a judgement on all. As soon as you open up decisions on sentencing provision which is going to judicial precedent to any Tom Dick and Harry in the street it falls apart. Simple fact is most people really won't care they would just do whatever their friend, partner or newspaper tell them to do.

I don't think demolishing it is that simple. They tried to do that once before way back in the sevenstone days but a load of NIMBYs from the Victorian Society, English Heritage and other such organisations kicked up the big stink about how it's got to be preserved and how it's such an important example of 60s architecture and how it's such an influential and historically significant design of department store building which falls under the preservation categories. I suspect all such fights would start up again, delaying and prolonging any advancement of the area. The red tape and endless tedious roundtable meetings have only just begun. All the while the 60s concrete block starts decaying and progressively becomes an eyesore right in the heart of our city centre. Park Hill all over again. As for John Lewis themselves they had better know what they are doing. Given they have already massively alienated South Yorkshire shoppers by casually suggesting they should pop up to Leeds... the shiny new Leeds store itself is hardly booming. Its offering is not so unique up there given the fact that it is just one of many places in that city where people can get premium label products and designer names (compared to the more more limited choice of such stores in Sheffield). Certainly when I was up there at the weekend the store was 3/4 empty. Primark certainly wasn't and interestingly neither was Harvey Nichols which goes to show some people are making money at either end of the spectrum. I'm not wholly convinced it's as simple as sitting back and going ....it's all Amazon's fault init....

Ha. You were ahead of me. Just for the record to draw a line under this continued nonsense by certain people I've had a quick check. Unsurprisingly Leeds Council are not funding a giant screen for the city. Based on the quotes in the Yorkshire Post it seems they have decided to prioritise public health above outdoor screening of some game of football. Clearly we are not so backward when compared to our rival as some people seem to think.

Oh diddums. just because we don't get obsessive a football. No I don't. I find those that do to be the completely dull unimaginative grey people as you say. In fact compared to many other sports fans, football falls into the literal definition of regulated uncompromising uninspiring herd mentality. Watch them pouring in and out of the grounds all wearing their uniforms pledging allegiance to their chosen sides. They couldn't look less like a clueless flock of sheep following their leader if they try. Ha. Brave guy. Now you've lit a fuse. You brought up the L Word

Interesting. Funny enough all private venues. All private money - not a single mention of local authorities footing the bill. Come on then businesses of Sheffield. Crack on. Be prepared to start splashing some of that private cash. Just look at this thread, obviously there is such a high demand for it...

The way some of these pathetic posts are coming on this thread it's as if there is absolutely no alternative way of seeing the match for god sake. I am still waiting for one good reason why our limited local authority resources should be used to set up a screen at vast expense just so some people to stand outside and watch a football game which will be freely broadcast available on everyone's own television or being shown in hundreds of pubs, bars and venues across the city.

🤣🤣🤣 Yeah if you say so. Well being as that ye olde Sheffield FC is actually now playing out of Dronfield - you better go complaining to NE Derbyshire County Council about why they are not putting a big screen up somewhere.

Bit harsh. I always like watching re-runs of that show. Tosh is my favourite character.

Bizarre. Another big private funded event like Tramlines but hardly any mention of it. You would barely know it was happening. I wonder if this, not fuelling the arguments on another thread, is the reason why no provision for a big screen is being considered for the match on Sunday. Although having a skim read the itinerary for this bouldering themed event or whatever it is, it seems there is already a big screen set up as part of it. Either way, I personally think it absolutely rediculous that they are running a completely open, freely available, mass gathering event when we are still under covid restrictions and facing ever-increasing numbers of infections and the R rate. At least with Tramlines, the bars and sporting venues numbers are being strictly controlled by tickets and strict entry policies. I'm reading this event it's far more just turn up and join us. Gonna be a risk surely.

Being edgy and taking risk is one thing but the watershed rule by Ofcom is very strict. That word is obviously a swear word and is not suitable for family viewing at 7pm. Don't think it's fair to blame C4 for complying with mandatory rules set by the regulator.