Life on the High Street is no box of chocolates 

PUBLISHED: 21:06, 5 August 2013 | UPDATED: 22:15, 5 August 2013
The most poignant story of the weekend was the closure of a chocolate shop in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Despite taking £4,000 a week, the owner couldn’t make ends meet.
Simon Dunn posted an open letter in his window to explain to customers why he was being forced out of business. I defy you to read it and not weep.
‘It is with great sadness I have had to cease trading from this wonderful shop. Why, you may wonder, as it was so busy, popular and good?’
Mr Dunn wrote that the closure might have come as a shock because the shop was always busy
The most poignant story of the weekend was the closure of this chocolate shop in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Despite taking £4,000 a week, the owner Simon Dunn couldn't make ends meet
Mr Dunn, whose Wilmslow shop was inside George Osborne's constituency, said the Chancellor should do more to help independent retailers
Mr Dunn, whose Wilmslow shop was inside George Osborne's constituency, said the Chancellor should do more to help independent retailers
He went on to spell out how an enterprise turning over a seemingly healthy £200,000 a year was not a going concern.
‘Sales in a good week £4,000. VAT £800. Rent and rates £1,000. Chocolate, coffee, milk, bread, packaging etc £800. Wages £1,300. Total £3,900.
‘Then there’s electric, telephone, insurance, bank charges, bins, etc, etc. 
Nothing left for me and I’m the one running round trying to keep it ticking over, lying awake at night trying to work out how to increase sales and doing everything possible.’
Parade: Other independent shops in the area are pictured, including an Oxfam next door (left)
Motorists are deterred from stopping outside small shops like Mr Dunn's and driven into the arms of giant supermarkets and out-of-town shopping malls, where parking is plentiful and free
This was no cheap-as-chips sweet shop in a scruffy, run-down inner city precinct. Wilmslow is in the heart of the Cheshire money belt, part of Chancellor George Osborne’s Tatton constituency.
Mr Dunn’s shop was bustling, popular with celebrities who live in the area, including Premiership footballers and stars from Coronation Street.
He said: ‘We were always busy and to the outsider looking in, the business was doing great. Sir Alex Ferguson and his wife were regular customers. I wrote the letter because I felt like I was letting down a lot of loyal customers so I wanted to explain what the situation was.
‘When we told customers we were closing, they were devastated. The staff were all in pieces.
Mr Dunn taped a goodbye letter to the shop window to explain to customers how he had nothing left once he'd covered his business costs
Mr Dunn taped a goodbye letter to the shop window in Wilmslow, Cheshire, to explain to customers how he had nothing left once he'd covered his business costs
‘I’m afraid independent traders on the High Street don’t have a chance these days. The sad part of it is that we are not the only business having to do this. It’s a national problem that is affecting every High Street.
'On a good week we were left with £100 profit and it was just not worth it. I have to turn over a certain amount just to keep moving, but if I go over that amount, suddenly I find myself in a position where I can be taxed more. It’s as though business owners are punished for being successful.’
Amen to that. You might have thought that a Conservative-led Government would be more sympathetic to small businesses. Osborne’s own affluence comes from his family’s wallpaper and decorating company.
But, no. This Tory-dominated Coalition is just as culpable in destroying small firms as its Labour predecessor. The political class seem to have absolutely no idea whatsoever of the daily grind of running a business.
Nick Clegg was at it again yesterday, demanding that all new fathers must take a month off work, regardless of the impact on employers
Nick Clegg was at it again yesterday, demanding that all new fathers must take a month off work, regardless of the impact on employers
They appear to think the purpose of enterprise is simply to create jobs and generate tax revenue.
But without profit, there would be no jobs and no taxes to fritter away on politicians’ pet projects.
Businesses are bled dry by government at every level and burdened with costly, useless regulation imposed from Westminster and Europe. One of the reasons some firms have introduced ‘zero hours’ contracts is to escape the death-grip of employment legislation and officially mandated workers’ entitlements.
 
  

More from Richard Littlejohn...

Nick Clegg was at it again yesterday, demanding that all new fathers must take a month off work, regardless of the impact on employers.
Why should he worry how a small firm will be able to manage for a month without key staff? He’s never had a proper job in his life and has been content to carve out a career funded by other people’s taxes.
Politicians don’t seem to realise or care that their self-righteous ‘green’ taxes force up energy bills and the cost of raw materials. 
Transport costs are crippling companies and leading to higher prices for consumers.
Mr Dunn also complained that on top of everything else, he even had to pay £5.50 a day just to park his car, a subject which has filled my postbag since I wrote about it last week. 
Since then, the sheer scale of council profiteering from parking charges and fines has been laid bare. 
Motorists are deterred from stopping outside small shops like Mr Dunn’s and driven into the arms of giant supermarkets and out-of-town shopping malls, where parking is plentiful and free. On top of the onerous costs imposed by government, many faceless property companies, often foreign-owned, are buying up freeholds and hiking rents to unreasonable heights.
Part of the reason this story struck such a chord with me was that my wife’s parents used to run a successful small bakery business in the Seventies and Eighties. They worked hard and reaped the rewards. These days they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Napoleon once caricatured Britain as a nation of shopkeepers. Not any more. In the words of Simon Dunn: ‘Before long, all that will be left on the British High Street is Tesco, Costa and charity shops. It’s just impossible for people like me to keep our heads above water.’
This letter should be nailed to the notice board in every Town Hall and Government department.
And what was Osborne’s reaction to the sad closure of a popular chocolate shop in his constituency? A Treasury spokesman said: ‘Small businesses are the backbone of the British economy.’
Try telling that to Simon Dunn and thousands of others who have been forced to close their doors because of the callous greed and stupidity of politicians.
After the decade-long Dale Farm debacle, you’d have thought Basildon would have had enough of the ‘travelling community’.
Apparently not. According to the Basildon Bugle, Essex County Council has launched a campaign to encourage travellers to clean their teeth.
Tarmac yer teeth, sur? A new campaign has been launched in Essex to encourage travelers to take better care of their teeth
Tarmac yer teeth, sur? A new campaign has been launched in Essex to encourage travelers to take better care of their teeth
The Essex County Wide Traveller Unit, as part of National Smile Month, has embarked on a taxpayer-funded project to ‘communicate the issues around oral hygiene to the traveller community’.
What sort of job is that? They don’t know what to do next, do they? 
You couldn’t  make it up.
A show at the Edinburgh Festival claims that Gordon Brown stopped carrying money in 1991
A show at the Edinburgh Festival claims that Gordon Brown stopped carrying money in 1991
Tarmac yer teeth, sur?
A show at the Edinburgh Festival describing Gordon Brown’s descent into madness includes the claim that he stopped carrying money in 1991.
I’ve never heard that one before, but it is said to be based on evidence from close aides. I thought it was only the Queen who didn’t carry cash. 
Still, it would help explain Gordon’s delusions of grandeur and sense of entitlement even before he reached Downing Street and started running up the nation’s credit card.
If he’d won the 2010 election, none of us would be carrying money by now. 
There wouldn’t be any left.

So unjust it makes you want to spit . . .

When librarian Elaine Perry was threatened in the street she called the police. Guess what? The cops arrested her instead.
Not only that, but to add insult to injury they hooded her, taped her legs together and bundled her into a van in front of a crowd of jeering onlookers.
She was kept in the special ‘spit hood’ for 15 minutes. It was removed only when she began hyperventilating.
Her ordeal began when she remonstrated with parents whose children were constantly sounding a car horn. After she was threatened by the children’s mother, who has a string of convictions for everything from assault to affray, Miss Perry dialled 999.
Humiliated: Mother of two Elaine Perry was forced to wear a 'spit hood'
Humiliated: Mother of two Elaine Perry was forced to wear a 'spit hood'
But the officers decided she was in the wrong. ‘I have never been in trouble before, yet I was treated like a criminal,’ she said. ‘I had no idea the British police could use this type of hood, which would not have looked out of place at Guantanamo Bay.’
Humiliating: A spit hood similar to the one used on Miss Perry who claimed it made her feel like she was being 'paraded in stocks'
A spit hood similar to the one used on Miss Perry who claimed it made her feel like she was being 'paraded in stocks'
I don’t suppose many people had any idea the Old Bill were hooding suspects. Neither did Chichester Magistrates, either, by the sound of it.
When Miss Perry, 57, appeared in court accused of threatening behaviour and assault, she was cleared of all charges.
She now intends to sue Sussex Constabulary. Let’s hope she takes them to the cleaners. This isn’t the first time police have decided to arrest a victim of crime, not the perpetrator.
The civil court might like to take time to consider the Twitter account of one of the officers who subjected Miss Perry to this degrading treatment.
It gives a valuable insight into the calibre of some police recruits these days. PC Katrina Saunders can be seen pulling a soppy face and, in response to a tweet about the introduction of tasers, wrote: ‘Yeaaaah taser taser taser!!! :-)’
We’re not talking The Gentle Touch here, are we?
Mind how you go.
A 67-year-old woman has ended her three-day sit-in protest at a public toilet in Bath. Lin Patterson occupied the lavatory in an attempt to stop the council closing it.
The provision of clean, public toilets is a mark of a civilised society. It’s one of the reasons we have councils in the first place. But these days local authorities don’t regard running proper services as part of their remit.
Row: Councillors have not been entirely sympathetic to her protest, asking her if who would be willing to clean and open them every day for free
67-year-old Lin Patterson has ended her three-day sit-in protest at a public toilet in Bath
That’s why they can’t even be bothered to empty the bins every week. They think councils exist to create an exciting range of unnecessary and unwanted jobs and keep staff in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
Bath Council said: ‘Difficult decisions need to be made to address the local impact of spending cuts.’
Funny how those ‘difficult decisions’ never extend to cutting councillors’ allowances or sacking superfluous bureaucrats. 
That’s why ‘services’ are going down the toilet.