Troubled waters – but a wave of success for others

Jul 2 2008 by Bill Gleeson, LDP Business editor

But that period of initial enthusiasm is long over. You walk into a Matalan store today and you end up asking yourself why are you there. The shops are difficult to navigate.

Product availability can be hit and miss. The sizes are all over the place. You may find a good offer on a designer label one week, but it won’t be there the next.

The retail sector is going to remain tough for many months to come. What opportunities exist are being devoured by the hugely popular, and direct competitor, Primark.

The outlook for Matalan remains uncertain at best and bleak at worst.

THE deal announced this week that sees Northwestern Shiprepairers and Shipbuilders maintain 11 Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels is genuinely innovative.

It marks a radical change in the way ship maintenance contracts are put out to tender.

Traditionally, shipyards have had to bid for work each time a vessel is due to be serviced. That means that each yard never knows what its order book is like from one year to the next. As a result, shipyards have been reluctant to invest in quayside infrastructure and skills training for their staff.

The 30-year whole of life contract for the maintenance of eleven vessels awarded to Northwestern, which operates from the former Cammell Laird shipyard, changes all that.

Worth around £30m a year, the contract represents the foundations on which the business can build for the future and means that anybody thinking of taking up an apprenticeship can do so safe in the knowledge that the local yard will be open for business for years to come – which is something that can’t have been said for many decades past.

And it’s the same with investment. Northwestern and its shareholders can now pump money into the Birkenhead facility safe in the knowledge that it will make a return.

All of which helps the MoD because they get a better equipped and a better skilled shipyard service for their vessels.

And yet it seems such a simple idea. Why wasn’t it thought of years ago?