Official confirmation that the 'Olympic
Sundays' legislation was misconceived
Last year the Keep Sunday Special campaign
vigorously opposed the Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic
Games) Bill when it was rushed through Parliament by the government using a
legislate procedure usually reserved for national emergencies. The government
argued at the time that the Bill was needed for ‘economic reasons’.
Now,
we have official confirmation that the whole exercise was, as we argued while the Bill was
being debated, misconceived. Official figures just published by the
Office for National Statistics show, as we predicted, that the increased
opening hours made no difference in economic terms — in fact the
retail figures actually fell last
August. The very large stores were the only ones to benefit from the
increased trading hours last summer — the drop in trade came largely at the expense
of smaller shops as supermarkets, usually operating restricted hours on
Sundays, took sales away from them. Once again, all hail the mighty
supermarkets!
Keep Sunday Special's
Latest Leaflet
Keep Sunday Special has released a new leaflet about our campaign and the reasons that we think Sunday should be special. Click here to see it! If you would like us to send you some leaflets to share with friends, colleagues or others then please get in touch.