Claire Sugden has called on residents to shop local and support “Small Business Saturday”.
The independent MLA said: “On 5th December Small Business Saturday will highlight small business success in Northern Ireland.
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy; 99.9% of them are small and medium enterprises, employing around 347,000 people. Their importance is often overlooked by both UK and Northern Ireland governments, so I am pleased to see this campaign hitting our highstreets for a third year.
As consumers we need to support our local businesses. There is no better time to do this than on the first big pre-Christmas shopping weekend.
Why not do your Christmas shopping in Moores or Bishops in Coleraine, or support your local agri-food businesses in Garvagh and Limavady. Top the day off by picking up lunch in one of our many fantastic cafes, or dinner from your local butcher.
We have outstanding local businesses right across this constituency. Most people own a small business, work for a small business or know somebody who does. This makes the Small Business Saturday campaign personal. It’s an opportunity to support your friends and family, and increase footfall in our town centres.
Last year across the UK 16.5 million people supported a small business through the campaign, spending £504 million on local goods. Let’s use this opportunity to kick-start local support as we approach Christmas. You can make a difference to a small business.”
This is A about face. If any of our elected representatives (council, assembly or Westminster) are interested in supporting small businesses they should turn up at Coleraine railway station at 8 am this Saturday for a few hours and ask the thousand people travelling to Belfast why they are travelling to Belfast. With a detailed list of items people are going to buy in Belfast they can then approach small business owners about stocking said items and when that approach is rejected we can then all feel happy about not supporting our local businesses. They are interested in people buying what they want to sell and not selling what people want to buy. I make no apologies to the 16 people who only buy from local shops.
It is interesting to notice that local vegetarians and vegans and others who do not eat meat are being ignored as the article invites people to pick up dinner in the butcher. As non meat eaters also have disposable income and live significantly longer than carnivores the it seems strange to be dismissive of a section of the population who will be spending money for many years after their meat eating cousins have died.