ECCOnoob

Source? I am certainly not seeing some mass exodus to the coast, countryside and Peak District. Where are all these thousands of ex city dwellers suddenly living? I don't recall the Peak District being known for its mass housing developments for example. Are you sure you are not applying the downturn in populous in London to mistakenly assume that this applies to every other city.....That is certain not the case. In fact it could be reasonably argued that the decline in demand for office and retail units is allowing people to reclaim their city centre a somewhere to live again. Mixed use is the big buzzword in the architectural world at the moment and I don't believe that just because people are not travelling to the office automatically means that they want to live in the middle of nowhere. People still like amenities. People still like urban environments.

Yeah that would be great. However in reality its completely unfeasible. You cannot simply "stop" people from travelling. People have jobs to return to, they have commitments, they have split families and responsibility to care for, they have 1001 potential arguments of legitimate purposes why they need to get somewhere and anyone putting up a barrier to that is going to be met with robust challenge, controversy and even legal action -which is only going to tie up the already stretch public services even more. It is an extremely difficult balancing exercise. Whilst of course I agree that has to be some form of control there are also extremely limited resources to manage it all and an extremely limited amount of public acceptance of any such control methods. It is quite clear, fueled by the pot stirring media, that there is obvious warring conflict.....with 50% of the population blaming the government for overreacting, crippling the economy and unreasonably disrupting their lives for some "piddling little flu" ......against 50% of the population blaming the government for not acting quick enough, decisive enough nor hard line enough by failing to lock people down in their homes 24/7 until all risks are totally eliminated. They can't do right for doing wrong and people will always make their own decisions on whether they are going to tow the line. Back in wartime, there was no shortage of stories and tales of those who rebelled against the system and took a stand against the rules. Bear in mind that was a period when actually must governments had the respect of their public and ultimate superiority. In modern times 2020 when governments or any public bodies are lothed, distrusted, ignored and constantly challenged by their public more than ever - trying to get the people to fall in line is going to be even more of a challenge no matter how legitimate the reasons.

Are you expecting the ticket sellers to interrogate every purchaser to find out where, why and how they are going somewhere? Are we expecting the BTP officers to track them and follow them put them under surveillance for the rest of the week to evidence that they were not travelling for legitimate purposes? Let alone the change of rules on christmas not officially starting until midnight yesterday the courts would be inundated with people trying to overturn their punishments. It would be a lawyers dream. It's not that simple.

Strange that. A Frenchman speaking about somewhere in connected to France and it's somehow ruins it?? I don't think anyone doubts that they are. TV takes an age to be made, be edited, be approved and then finally get broadcast. I think it's been a running gag for a while that most Christmas TV is filmed in August with the Blazing sun in the background

Oh yes, Fred the glorified waiter who has somehow become a "personality". Have to admit I don't get it. It seems a completely bizarre combination with very little purpose other than three people having a midlife crisis. At least with proper Top Gear/Grand Tour (which follows the same old men behaving badly trick) the three protagonists are actually serious car journalists with a genuine interest in the subject and produce the programme with a deliberate and obvious purpose to entertain. The combination of Fred, Gino and Gordon simply has no structure. I never know what is supposed to be or even what sort of subject it's supposed to cover. The relationship between them (again unlike Top Gear) doesn't fit. Gordon is a successful top tier Michelin-starred chef who has always in the past robustly argued that he was not a "TV presenter" is now alongside bargain basement, Iceland ready meal Gino who is the ultimate definition "TV Cook" and is almost one step away from being a chacatertue of one. Add on that both of these so-called chefs are suddenly chummy with of all things A WAITER...... a job role who most head chefs (particularly Gordon if you have ever seen his behind the scenes early documentaries) detest and abuse...... it's all so fake it's painful. Certainly not one for me.

Knowing someone who is doing it right now I can't really say if it's hard or not. You have certainly got to commit. It is a proper degree which if you're studying it part-time is just spread out over several additional years. OU generally say that people should be committing at least 35 hours week study time for a full-time degree or at least 16 to 20 hours week study time for those doing it part-time. If you are running OU alongside a job and family commitments you have to be disciplined. You sort of can work at your own pace but there are fixed dates for assignments and exams which need to be met - so it is quite intense. Despite what some of the critics say about the courses, they are a proper degree and not to be put down as just some half assed 6 week correspondence course. Of course the one massive advantage of OU, which is why my mate did it, is the fact that their study fees are about a third of what a bricks-and-mortar uni would charge.

Well up until recently I had a 10-year old petrol car and didn't need to buy any of those. My mother still has a 13-year old car and purchased nothing more than some replacement wiper blades. I know I've said earlier that we are the age of the throwaway culture and that is trickling down to our motor cars but are we really now at the point of simply laying back and accepting that there will be planned obsolescence leaving no alternative but a vastly expensive replacement which punishes those who drive electric vehicles. £2,000 is certainly not an insignificant amount of money and depending on the model that a person owns could be more than a quarter of the entire value of a new car. That's in anyone's mine is simply ridiculous. 10 years ago in the car world is 59/10 plate. Have a look around. How many cars and vans are still happily driving around with barely a fault. Even when they do have faults spares for the majority of mainstream vehicles are cheap and plentiful. The skills needed to repair them are widespread. Whilst I fully appreciate that we all have to start somewhere, the fact remains that until such position applies to electric vehicles the 'masses' are simply not going to entertain them. EV needs to be far far more encouraged, promoted and attracted to those well beyond the cliquey bubble of the yuppie London set and a few pretentious Tesla owners.

Are they??? Where they are moving to live then? With multiple retail units lingering empty the hospitality industry about to take one hell of a bashing, residential development seems to be only thing that is progressing. It could be argued that the the increasing environmental awareness, obvious discouraging of car use and trend of people seeking to living much closer to their work/study....... city centre living may well be on the increase.

Not quite. Just like the skewed flu death statistics someone pointed out earlier - covid death stats should also be taken with a huge dose of salt. Quite rightly there is a lot of skepticism as to the way that these deaths are recorded. The base method is recording all those who died with the virus anytime up to 28 days after a positive test. In theory that could mean I could test positive for covid, walk out of the clinic, get hit by a bus but then be included in the statistics. I'm certainly not suggesting that its not a high number of deaths nor that the virus or actions in preventing the spread should be taken lightly.....But I don't like the way this 50,000 total is constantly thrust in our faces and emphasised across the media when it clearly has significant caviats including people with pre-existing long-standing diseases who would have died in any event. Should such dubious figures really be used to scaremonger the population and cause ever increasing disruption and hardship to people's personal lives and the economy. Let's not forget, even at it's peak point is was still only affecting a tiny percentage of the overall population. For all I strongly disagree with them it's not hard to see where some of the conspiracy theorists and antivax brigade have got their fuel from.

Kids going back to school, allows parents to go back to work some of whom provide that essential service that we are require. Not all parents have the ability to work flexibly or have a big support network of relatives, friends or childcare just waiting ready to go. It also keeps their education flowing which does not have have the same impact when it's been done either homeschool by parents or distance learning on laptops. It was going to happen sooner or later and given there was already months of learning lost resulting in several exams being completely cancelled with still no sign of mass vaccinations until at least Spring next year just how long can it be feasible to keep them off. It's not such a black and white decision.

I'll suspect its the latter. There is enough fuel of the Conspiracy theorists and the anti-vax brigade as it is. Who really cares though. It's hardly a shocking story, There are people who have allergies to everything. It happens all the time even with medicines and vaccinations now with doctors and nurses asking if you have a particular allergy to XYZ before administering a dose. I suspect it will be exactly the same with the covid-19 one. Blimey, you can't even go for a meal these days without a nervy waiter asking you a list of questions before placing your order so medication is expected.

That is the way of the world these days though. It is all about the end user. People buy thing, know how to use it and when it breaks they have "people" to sort it out for them. I know not so long ago there was the typical suburban scene of driver's on a Sunday afternoon out on the front of their houses tinkering to keep their rustbucket vehicles running...... topping up this, adjusting that, replacing the other..... and to think the manufacturers and retailers had the nerve to sell such products! We are very much in a throw away Society and expect things to just work. That is trickling down to vehicles too. Buy it, use it, replace it. Add on the fact that over the decades vehicles, particularly electric ones, have become increasingly complicated I don't think there is such a thing as basic maintenance anymore. Try it when there is not a pandemic and half the city's population is working or isolating at home. Try it when all the businesses are fully open and operational and it's not so easy.

I didn't mention about parking I'm talking about getting into the city. The longer the council carry on with their chopping and changing of road networks, the more they push and push the traffic flow onto already busy and inadequate ring roads, the more those who have no option to drive are going to look to avoid going anywhere near the city and shop, eat, entertain and do business elsewhere. Like I said, they could not give two hoots about car drivers. They have always had their selective blindness about people who cannot for several reasons feasibly use public transport or cycle. Time and time again do they show their bias towards the minority cycling agenda with their so called "improvement schemes".

Well there is an information kiosk right on Arundel Gate alongside a large number of bus stops. There are also digital information displays with all the timetable information and destinations showing at each bus stop. There is also big posters showing all of the key routes from such stops and a wider network on each stop......Its certainly not the worst provision I've seen. From travelling around quite a lot in my work we really do have much more "integration" compared to many other cities. There are some cities that barely have information provision at all or at best it's a scrappy paper timetable nailed to a concrete post. Some other places I've been, whilst they do have a centralised and well-equipped bus station/depot they have very little else around the rest of the city leading to people having to walk some way from one end to the other to get back to what bus they need. At least a large number of our routes do take some form of loop around the city centre which means that you can have a choice of places to join/leave the route depending on which part of town you wish to get to. Anyway, back on topic my concern with this ridiculous scheme is that the seem to be removing that facility of having multiple bus routes loop around the key areas of the centre in favour of shoving them out of the way onto some kind of fringe route. I could almost forgive if the intention was to create a centralised core of the city centre which is fully pedestrianised and easy to get around but from what I have interpreted the plans to be it seems to be far more in favour of giving a nice convenient cut-through to appease the cycle natzis and sticking a big two fingers up at any pedestrians or public transport users. As for those who have the audacity to drive a personal or business vehicle anywhere near the city centre well you can just about go do one as far as the council is concerned. It is a money grab then. Just as I suspected and just like the failed embarrassing Shalesmoor scheme.

Thank you. That must have changed very recently as it was scheduled to open in Spring. Even the news on meadowhall own website must be out of date. It's a shame - but clearly they must have had a feeling that Frasers would not perform well particularly in the drastically changed climate and made the sensible decision to can it before investing too much and setting themselves up for a fall. Hope there are maybe some opportunity for the staff to be absorbed into other areas of the group. In fact if they give in and let Ashley buy Debenhams out of administration there might be some hope later down the line.

Yeah if you like Anna. Until their recent downfall another very successful businessman who established thousands of branches and in-store concessions, created hundreds of thousands of jobs and contributed millions to the economy. Go push your anti-capitalism agenda somewhere else. This is about House of Fraser.

Flannels will be part of it on one floor. What was House of Fraser is going more premium, more compact and single level to become Frasers. It will still be a dept store just much smaller and more selective in its stock. There has been quite a lot about it in the Star and meadowhall website. "gone" in one sense but better to evolve it and keep some staff than it stagnate and close altogether. At least he tried to stop it from closing altogether. The retail world has changed and stores cannot cling on to their legacies and reputation. They all have to adapt to what customers want. Those that don't go the same way as Debenhams. I don't get this whole criticism of Ashley thing. Yes he might be a ruthless hard nosed uncaring businessman but being like that has saved dozens of brands and thousands of jobs. He may have a reputation of bringing cheaper brands into once 'upmarket' establishment but ultimately that is what we the customers are demanding. Big posh department stores don't make money out of customers going in once a week fiddling with the merchandise, looking at pretty lights and then going home complaining it's too expensive and buying it from Amazon.

Need to pay it then dont they. This is not exactly rocket science. A court orders you to do something. You do it or get punished.

Not sure about that. By their very nature all department stores are a collection of concessions under one roof. Debenhams has been like that for at least 50+ years. Let's also not forget that at some point in its history it was actually owned by the Burton Group (i.e. Arcadia) . Its therefore no surprise a vast amount of its stock and concession operations were connected. With the collapse of one, the collapse of the other was inevitable. The sad fact is that Debenhams had lost its way for years. It didn't know what it wanted to be. They had far too many stores of mixed condition with some being compact clean modern looking stores and others being huge outdated relics which has not been refurbished since the 80s. A lot of their customer service was indifferent and their online offer was dull and too clunky. The competition became fierce, their prices became less competitive and they couldn't decide whether they wanted to go after the the mass low-cost high-volume markets such as Primark and H&M or the smaller catchment of premium designer label market such as John Lewis or Selfridges leading to an awkward hybrid of £8 house brand shirts being sold alongside £90 shoes and £250 designer saucepans. Pick a market lads. I still have a hope that somebody will buy it and transform its more worthy stores into a into clear direction but whatever happens it is clear that the numbers of real estate is going to have to be severely culled otherwise it will die altogether.

Given the lottery is onow well over 20 years old surely its more the case that games, players and how they play has completely evolved over time. The days of the Saturday queue at the lottery counter and gathering round the telly tickets in hand are long gone but I suspect significant numbers still reguarly play online or on their phones or even have direct debits set up with results / winning notifications automatically sent to them by email. No need to waste money on an expensive cheesy, long winded televised game show anymore. There must still be plenty buying because the jackpot and prize winner fund has certainly kept high.

Good for her. Show business is an extremely difficult nut to crack and people need that push push push to even get a look in. I don't agree with this blanket word of "talentless". You may not personally like them and may not choose to watch them (...in fact neither do I really) however, nobody in a world as fickle and brutal as television gets a career spanning decades and multiple contracts if they have no Talent. The fact is they still are deemed a sellable asset. Even Paul Ross, who is clearly the less valuable of the brothers still gets a nice 6-figure salary fronting radio programs and and low rent presenting on Lidl level TV shows. All the executives will care about is what draw they have - they must have enough for them to keep writing the cheques over the 1001 other talking heads available.

By your own admission you know nothing about the procedure, have no experience of claiming and seemingly are not a worker entitled to it anyway. You just made a pointless, baseless and inaccurate assumption which you have been called out on. It's not even relevant to the primary topic under discussion. Move on and stop desprately trying to further your continuing government bashing.

It's quite simple with a dedicated online portal set up. The logistics of how and where to apply have been widely published for some time. Hundreds of staff at my work have done it without issue and anyone with a basic knowledge of the internet should do fine. Why do you always jump in with a load of presumed negativity all the time without actually taking the trouble to find out for yourself.

You got there ahead of me. I really don't understand what Anna thinks is so "appalling". It's certainly not perfect but we have an extensive bus network with many being high capacity lines, several suburban rail stations, a tram network and and a handful of purpose built Park and Ride facilities. Even the cost is lower than many other cities have to pay out and they get significantly less facilities. Grass is Always Greener and all that.

No it's not. Lets not get hysterical here. Yes it's a shadow of its former self. Yes it has lost some of its prestige. Yes one may be able to argue with it is slightly run down. But, that is very different to the image you are trying to portray. It's just a shopping street which is facing exactly the same difficulties and hardships over the past decade as any other major High Street. Even the mighty prestigious Oxford Street in London is a shadow of its former glory days. Chapel Walk, lovely as it may be, was never exactly Burlington Arcade or Bond Street. Now unfortunately its in the wrong place. Retail in the city has evolved to become more compact and more targeted to have any chance of survival. It can no longer be this sprawling meandering parade of endless shops like it used to be. That scenario is reserved for modern day shopping malls. I will certainly agree that Chapel Walk needs to evolve to cater for its new type of tenants which is going to be more catering for residential and mixed use occupiers. It also needs to cater to a new breed of shopper taste, trends and demands. Harping on about the glory days is not going to help that. Irrelevant, let's not try and pretend that its turned into Sheffield version of skid row. That is just nonsense