Flourishing and dynamic micro-economy is booming

Oct 15 2008 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

HEAVILY fatigued from reading and hearing about the property market downturn, let alone the global one, speculative developers, especially in the office market on Merseyside, have been suffering for longer than most.

Aside from your office speculators, though, there’s a flourishing and dynamic micro-economy out there on Merseyside right now.

It’s almost embarrassing if you wear the school of modesty badge as to how busy we and a number of businesses are that provide products and design solutions for developers looking to upgrade existing stocks of commercial property.

There are many Liverpool firms brimming with orders from all around the UK helping to keep up the nation’s reputation as working some of the longest hours in Europe.

Of course, the big picture is everything but it doesn’t give punters the inside track on how well certain sectors of the local economy are doing. Take, for example, the licensed and leisure sector of our commercial property portfolio.

Despite the widely publicised downturn in London’s restaurant trade, venture into the mid- to up-market echelons of Liverpool city centre’s restaurants one night and witness the buzz – even early midweek.

Liverpool One’s restaurants are currently overwhelmed by trade early doors and I don’t think this is a passing fancy.

There are plenty of bright shoots with companies investing long-term in their infrastructure. Success for them is not determined by the harbingers of doom, but rather demand, quality of product and suppliers.

Statement of the obvious, but people have to do a number of fundamental things in life and one of them is to eat and drink.

There are no signs that the developer market for licensed & leisure is slowing in Liverpool, and, if your business is interior design or related, there’s a fair chance that you can feast on the rich pickings being offered by the number of ventures opening up, continually expanding or refurbishing their operations.