Welcome to the Hertford blog

Unless you’ve been in the Arctic Circle over the last few days you can’t have failed to have missed the news on the UK riots.

What began in Tottenham on the night of the 6th August spread across Britain and as I type this on Thursday the 11th the trouble is still not completely over.

The scenes of people looting and smashing up shops is disgusting and those responsible need to be brought to justice swiftly.

So now is the time when your local businesses need you the most.  We thankfully didn’t have any trouble in Hertford but things did get dangerously close.  It’s very easy to become complacent about the shops in your town.  You walk and drive past them every day.  So instead of thinking of them as a service in your town, imagine them as the people who own them.

If you’re reading this and have never been in or previously owned a business, then it’s hard to know what hard work these owners do every day.  In what is one of the worse financial times in history things are really stacked against the shops.  People are struggling and are holding back on their spending, but still Amazon, Tesco, River Island etc report big profits.  So people are still spending money – just not locally.

This isn’t me trying to preach to buy local, but the next time you need to make a purchase, wonder down to the town, have a look around.  You will most probably find what you’re looking for, and find it’s reasonably priced.  In fact one of our business members, Kris from KAP Accountancy used HD Audio Visual last week for a specific lead for a stereo.  Not only did they have it in stock, but they were considerably cheaper than online retailers.  It should come as no shock that local retailers are often cheaper than online, and even when they aren’t it’s worth remembering that there’s no postage, no risk of it being lost or damaged in the post, or if there’s a problem then the friendly shop owner will be happy to help face to face.

You can’t beat great service, at any price.  That’s what local retailers in Hertford pride themselves on.  So use them and support them.

Thanks.