Evening Standard wrote:The owner of the Westfield shopping centres today said it is “reviewing” its £1.4 billion new development in Croydon because of Brexit and “structural changes” on the high street.
Work on the centre, which is hoped to be the catalyst for broader regeneration, was due to start in September but is now not expected to begin until next year.
The plans for the scheme, being built jointly by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and property company Hammerson, were approved in November 2017 and got the green light from Sadiq Khan in January last year.
But the joint venture partnership has now said: “There are challenges surrounding the UK economic and political outlook and the structural changes facing retail have put some UK retailers under pressure.
"We are reviewing the scheme to ensure it responds to changing retailer requirements and is appropriate for the future.”
It insisted that it remains committed to the centre, which will have a John Lewis department store and a major Marks & Spencer branch, and still plans to open it in 2023.
The delays have frustrated traders and residents in a town that was badly scarred by the 2011 riots.
Retail analyst Nick Bubb said: “Retailing is changing quickly given the inroads being made online.
"I suspect the developers are now having second thoughts about both the choice of wanchors and the major space users in the centre.”
The development is a key part of a wider £5.25 billion regeneration of Croydon, and the Whitgift centre there will be demolished to make room for Westfield Croydon.
It will provide 500,000 sq ft of retail space with more than 300 shops, and create 7,000 jobs. There will also be more than 600 new homes.
A Croydon council spokesman said: “We remain encouraged by Westfield’s commitment. Despite a fast-changing retail market and economic uncertainty related to Brexit, the council has delivered on finalising the land assembly and final compulsory purchase order process. We now look forward to Westfield announcing a start date for next year."
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ ... 66846.htmlBrexit is 'partly why Epsom and St Helier has 300 nursing vacancies'
Epsom and St Helier hospitals have around 300 nursing vacancies combined and it's partially because of Brexit, according to their chief executive.
Daniel Elkeles also told Sutton Council’s scrutiny committee that the NHS trust’s “big negative” is staffing – with only 10 out of 26 vacancies being filled for a particular role in their respective A&E departments.
But there are plans to halve that gap in 2020 as he discussed a performance update report at a recent meeting.
He said: “There are lots of mentions [in the report] about workforce in our performance report and, broadly, we're doing okay on the total numbers of people employed in the trust but we're having more and more challenges with both recruitment and filling posts.
“It's not good to report that we have 300 nursing vacancies. People have asked before, 'Does that relate to Brexit?', to which a chunk of the answer is, 'Yes it does'.
“The big negative is staffing, we have never had so many gaps in A&E.
“Sometimes you could fill the gap with temporary staff, and sometimes you can't, and if you don't have sufficient senior decision-makers, senior doctors and senior nurses on duty, you can't treat the people as quickly.”
He added that the vacancies are a contributing reason as to why their performance “isn’t as good”, but referred to a new role having been introduced – the associate nurse.
Eight recently secured their necessary qualifications, and another 10 are currently in training, while all of them have been recruited “locally”.
The role is one below registered nurse, but Cllr David Hicks asked whether there is the potential for progression through to becoming fully qualified from it.
Mr Elkeles replied that the barrier between the two is having a degree, though the trust will support trainees to overcome this.
The NHS trust boss said: “We were just setting our objectives for next year and one of our objectives is we're going to try is to reduce our vacancies in nursing from 300 to 150 next year.
“We're going to have to do a huge amount of recruitment and retention to do that.
“We're very good at people staying in Epsom and St Helier [hospitals] when they are here, which we're very pleased about because generally it means people enjoy their jobs.”
https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/new ... vacancies/I'm beginning to think this new Westfield isn't going to get built...especially if there's a worldwide recession in 2020.
