Every effort should be made

Above: article by Marcus Leroux in today's Times about the way in which High Street shops have been affected in the economic downturn. Marcus Leroux is retail correspondent at The Times http://journalisted.com/marcus-leroux . He has a twitter account http://twitter.com/marcusleroux .



Above: every effort should be made to preserve small family-owned retail units. Not only do they employ more people, they keep money within local communities and they have longer staying power - often over several generations. They also contribute significantly to community cohesion and regeneration.

I would like to see the government give incentives to family owned start-ups - perhaps even zero taxes and rates for the first five years or so.



Above: whenever I see the tagline "family owned" I am inclined to give a company my support, even if the prices are slightly higher. One of the reasons Germany has done fairly well economically is that a large proportion of their manufacturing sector is made up of family-owned companies and so are less susceptible to the arguments of accountants. Also less likely to be asset stripped (in the disgraceful way Kraft has despoiled Cadbury).