Page 26 - Stuart Patrick News Today

Stuart Patrick, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Chief Exec-JS The election is behind us and with the trees outside my window coming fully into leaf I am determined to look ahead with optimism. At last the pandemic news is positive. The UK threat level has dropped to three and more scientists are sounding optimistic that the vaccination programme is having a better impact than expected. And unless I am being selective in my reading of scientific analysis the dire warnings on variants appear to b...

-KA. Photo by Kirsty Anderson Throughout this pandemic we have been making assumptions about how life would change and chief amongst those has been the view that in the post pandemic era activity would move away from city centres and out to smaller towns and local neighbourhoods. City centres would struggle to recover fully from the battering they have taken and broadly the bigger the city the greater the long-term damage would be. With the re-opening of non-essential shops and hospitalit...

EDINBURGH-based online ticketing and livestreaming platform Citizen Ticket has secured a partnership with leading Scottish production company, Cameron, to provide clients across the country with tech support to deliver livestream events. Cameron is one of three partners working with Citizen Ticket to successfully assist event organisers in the delivery of both livestream and hybrid events. Other partners include Visair in Manchester and gass Productions in Kent. The collaboration enable...

POCKETS of poor connectivity could hamper the economic recovery for some in Scotland’s largest city, it is claimed. While the Scottish Government’s R100 programme has helped Scotland to where 95 per cent of the country can order a superfast service at a speed of 30mbps and above, rural areas face delays of up to five years for connectivity and urban communities are said to also be facing setbacks. Stuart Patrick, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce chief executive, has raised the issue of sma...

Scottish cycling legend and sustainable travel advocate Mark Beaumont has officially opened the new "Highland Home" of Johnnie Walker on the famous North Coast 500 scenic route. Diageo hailed the new visitor experience at Clynelish Distillery, which is part of a wider tourism push by the drinks giant. Sited in the Sutherland town of Brora on the famous NC500 route, the transformed distillery adds a “new high-quality attraction” to the Highlands, as Scotland’s tourism sector prepare...

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JANUARY 27: general view of Glasgows main retail high streets and shopping areas including Buchanan Street and Sauchiehall Street on January 27, 2020 in Glasgow, Scotland. Shot for a Herald business story (Photo by Jamie GLASGOW is revving up to welcome back shoppers and visitors to city streets as lockdown restrictions are lifted. The city council has launched a campaign to tempt people back to the city as shops, bars and some leisure facilities open their doors for the...

Stuart Patrick, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Chief Exec-JS Am I being too cynical in assuming that an election campaign is not usually the moment for sophisticated debates on the future of Scotland’s economy? This is the season for silver bullets and simple targets. So it was a pleasant surprise to see the publication by the Hunter Foundation of Oxford Economics’ Raising Scotland’s Economic Growth Rate. Sir Tom Hunter can always be relied upon to tackle head-on the trickiest of issue...

We would normally expect the work of any government to wind down during an election campaign but after spending much of the last two weeks…

Liz Cameron By Ian McConnell SCOTTISH Chambers of Commerce is calling for the relationship between businesses and politicians to be “reset”, with a policy document issued ahead of the Holyrood election on May 6. Launching the “action plan” entitled “Rally for Growth”, Scottish Chambers said “parliamentarians need to understand and support the value and importance of business in their policy programme”. The business organisation declared: “The report is aimed at offerin...

An Easter weekend spent in the sunshine and the reopening of garden centres, hairdressers and homeware shops maybe finally justifies some optimism for the months ahead. The Office for National Statistics reported last week a near-record household savings ratio in the last quarter of 2020. At 16.1 per cent, the average share of disposable income saved has only once been higher since records began back in 1963. All that extra available cash should bode well for firms in aviation, tourism and ...