The Tour of Britain cycle race reaches Liverpool today (Wednesday) and there will be a number of restrictions on roads around the Liverpool Town Hall:

• Castle Street will be closed from 7pm on Tuesday, 29 August until 6.30pm on Wednesday, 30 August.

• Water Street will be closed from 5am to 4.30pm on Wednesday, 30 August.

• The Strand will be closed between James Street and Great Howard Street from 1pm to 3pm on Wednesday, 30 August.

• There will be no on-street parking allowed on Drury Lane, Brunswick Street, Fenwick Street, Cook Street or North John Street from 4pm on Tuesday, 29 August to 6.30pm on Wednesday, 30 August.

Also the major works began on Lime Street on Thursday, 31 August. United Utilities will require a lane closure inbound from the Empire to Lime St Station for five weeks, followed by the Lime Street Gateway Project, (subject to successful CPOs). Please consider alternative routes, especially the improved route along Seymour Street and Copperas Hill

September will see the arrival of seven new directors to the Chamber’s board.

Each one of this magnificent seven is an experienced business leader, and will bring a wealth of knowledge and skills to help the Chamber build on its recent successes.

Pending ratification by the Council of the Chamber, the new directors will be:

• Sue Woodward - Managing Director, Granada TV
• Budha Majumdar - Managing Director, Peel Ports
• Sara Wilde - Regional Managing Director, Trinity Mirror (joining us as Deputy Vice Chair)
• Brian McCann - Hurst & Company
• Matt Johnson - Mando Group
• Bill Addy - Iliad Group
• Vincent Owen - Property Regeneration

We look forward to these illustrious business people joining us, and are sure they will bring real dynamism and energy to our future activities.

Find out more about the Chamber’s senior staff and board on our main site.

In a move that would make James Bond proud, Liverpool Chamber’s conference facilities have been declared clean of all illegal electronic surveillance devices. The facilities now provide guaranteed safe and secure venues for meetings, presentations and conferences.

The service was provided by Chamber members Dave Burrows Technical Solutions Unlimited. Partners in the company Dave Burrows and Mike Smyth, are both ex-police officers and have brought their considerable experience and expertise into the commercial arena. They are able to search and locate ALL types of bugging or surveillance device currently in use today. Using sophisticated electronic counter-measures they can locate any electronic intrusion or interference from both inside and outside the premises. In these days of data and information theft any means of ensuring security and peace of mind should be utilised.

So if you need to discuss sensitive business matters, whether they be next year’s new product or the overthrow of a small African nation, Liverpool Chamber can offer you a private and secure venue.

Read more on this story on Liverpool Chamber’s main site.

Today, August 23, is Slavery Remembrance Day.

The day seeks to both commemorate the lives of enslaved Africans and to celebrate the resistance, rebellion and revolution which ended slavery. It also hopes to help promote understanding of the Slave Trade and its contemporary consequences.

Liverpool marks this event every year with services and a waterfront libation. Today’s events include:

• An Interfaith Church Service at St Nicholas Liverpool Parish Church at 10.45am
• A cultural food and craft exhibition marquee on Otterspool Promenade from 12pm
• A waterfront libation blessing the event at 1pm
• From 1.30pm onwards an afternoon of music and drama in the waterfront marquee.

For more details, visit the National Museums Liverpool Slavery Remembrance Day website.

Would your organization be interested in a day volunteering, cleaning up a city school or garden within city grot spots? You can bring along colleagues, clients or their kids!

ITV’s 2006 volunteering campaign ‘Big Clean-Up’ launched in May. The campaign encourages people all over the country to get out for a day on Sunday 17 September, designated by the United Nations as ‘Clean Up The World Weekend’, and volunteer on projects that will improve their local communities. The ITV campaign will motivate thousands of volunteers to get involved in local initiatives and make a real difference to the areas in which they live and work.

ITV have linked with Cares, a Business in the Community initiative, to get employees involved in around 60 projects all over the UK. Would you like to get involved via Liverpool Cares? They need teams of 11 from you, and it promises to be a fun team building event.

What we will do for you:

1. Take you on a site visit so you can see the project and meet the community representative

2. Train the allocated team leader from your company team- the training takes a couple of hours at our city centre office

3. Co-ordinate press releases

4. Attend the event and issue certificates to all involved

5. Put your company name on our website and produce a case study online at www.bitc.org.uk

6. Conduct a full evaluation after the event

What you need to do….

1. Pick a project

2. Pay £500 administration fee per team project

3. Have lots of fun (and if ITV visit your project on the 17th September you’ll need to smile for the camera)

Please contact alison.gibney@bitc.org.uk or 0151 706 9500 for further details

One in three employers is having to send staff for remedial training to teach them basic English and maths skills they did not learn at school, the CBI said today (Monday) in a new report which calls for urgent action to tackle these shortcomings.

Around a fifth of employers often find non-graduate recruits of all ages have literacy or numeracy problems, yet a third expect the levels of skills required for work will increase over the next five years.

The disturbing figures are contained in a CBI report commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills as part of its promise to raise basic skills levels through new functional skills modules for GCSEs.

It defines in detail what it means to be literate and numerate in the modern world of work - and also reveals what abilities in recruits employers would most like to see improved.

Simple mental arithmetic without a calculator, the ability to interpret data, competence in percentages, and calculating proportions top the numeracy wish list. Written communication including legible handwriting, communicating information orally, understanding written instructions, and correct grammar and spelling are the areas of literacy most in need of improvement.

Apart from the cost of having to pay for remedial training, UK businesses have to carry the burden in terms of low productivity, especially compared to their international competitors whose new recruits can boast higher functional skills.

Last year barely half of GCSE students achieved a Grade C or above in maths (54%) and just six out of ten (60%) in English. Only 45 per cent achieved both - the benchmark for competence in the three Rs. But the opportunities for unskilled workers will shrivel from 3.4 million today to 600,000 by 2020, according to Lord Leitch’s interim report on skills in the UK.

Read the full press release on the CBI site.

Download the full report here (PDF)

Due to a increase in the UK’s terrorist threat level to critical, new restrictions are currently being imposed at all UK airports, including Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

The latest advice from the Easyjet airline is:

PLEASE NOTE - with immediate effect NO hand-baggage will be allowed on aircraft. Only certain essential items will be allowed into the cabin - provided they are contained in transparent plastic bags, which will be issued at airports. All other items are required to be packed into hold baggage and checked-in on arrival at the airport.

Unfortunately the airline expects significant delays throughout the day and there are likely to be cancellations as a result of these extraordinary circumstances. Passengers booked on cancelled flights will be entitled to a refund or may transfer their flight to a later date free of charge.

Passengers should allow extra time for their journeys and are being asked for patience as airlines and airports implement the new arrangements.

Passengers and cabin baggage

The following arrangements apply to all passengers starting their journey at a UK airport and to those transferring between flights at a UK airport.

With immediate effect all cabin baggage must be processed as hold baggage and carried in the hold of passenger aircraft departing UK airports

Passengers may take through the airport security search point, in a single (ideally transparent) plastic carrier bag, only the following items.

Nothing may be carried in pockets:

• pocket size wallets and pocket size purses plus contents (for example money, credit cards, identity cards etc (not handbags));
• travel documents essential for the journey (for example passports and travel tickets);
• prescription medicines and medical items sufficient and essential for the flight (eg, diabetic kit), except in liquid form unless verified as authentic.
• spectacles and sunglasses, without cases.
• contact lens holders, without bottles of solution.
• for those travelling with an infant: baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger) and sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight (nappies, wipes, creams and nappy disposal bags).
• female sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight, if unboxed (eg tampons, pads, towels and wipes).
• tissues (unboxed) and/or handkerchiefs
• keys (but no electrical key fobs)

All passengers must be hand searched, and their footwear and all the items they are carrying must be x-ray screened. Any activation of the archway metal detector must be fully resolved. Formal NSM protocols are suspended with immediate effect to free up staff resources for passenger searching duties.

However, any items rejected by the x-ray screener must be hand searched and subject to trace detection where available.

Pushchairs and walking aids must be x-ray screened, and only
airport-provided wheelchairs may pass through the screening point.

For the latest news updates, visit:

The BBC website

Liverpool John Lennon Airport website

EasyJet website 

Liverpool Chamber’s Business Crime Direct is today meeting with colleagues from Newcastle Upon Tyne to share best practice in protecting the night time economy.

Joe Curran the Chamber’s Licensing Co-ordinator for Liverpool city centre and Constable Sheila Morrison from Merseyside Police have already visited their colleagues in the North East to see how they operate in one of the most well known and vibrant night time economies in the UK.

The return visit by officers from Northumbria Police and Newcastle City Council trading standards team will examine the city centre’s CCTV room, which controls and monitors the largest and most sophisticated camera network outside London and St Anne Street Police Station where they will learn more about the process of Interim Banning Orders.

Joe explained: “Our visit to Newcastle provided some very interesting comparisons, there were several innovative projects in place and a very successful Best Bar None scheme that had the full backing of both the Police and the licences in the city.”

The delegation will be welcomed by a range of officers from the Chamber’s BCD team, Merseyside Police and officers from Liverpool city council.

Joe commented: “Liverpool is the first city to pioneer the use of Interim Banning Orders for trouble makers and our visitors are keen to find out more about how we are introducing this process and the impact that it is having. We are confident that working together in this way and sharing best practice will be beneficial for the night time economy in both cities.”

The TUC has launched its new website, packed full of useful tools for employees and jobseekers.

The site allows you to calculate your hourly rate and pension requirements, check your salary rate, find union representation and check your National Insurance and tax bills.

The site also provides information on companies such as staff pay and pensions compared to directors, profits and losses, shareholder details and arrangements for staff representation.

TUC assistant general secretary, Kay Carberry said: “Most employees in the country will now have freedom to get important information about their company with the click of a mouse rather than digging through company reports. Company finder also enables job seekers to check out a firm before interviews or accepting a post. The TUC will continue adding to this search tool to give current and prospective employees as much information about UK plc as possible.”

Visit the TUC’s Worksmart website here.

The campaign to create a democratically elected mayor for Liverpool gathered pace today with a comprehensive article in the Daily Post, including an open letter sent to the paper calling for such a role.

The campaigners believe Liverpool needs an elected mayor to re-ignite the population’s engagement with local poiltics, bring strong and accountable leadership to the council and champion Liverpool’s business, voluntary and cultural activities locally and nationally.

The campaign is backed by many influential people from the city, including artist Alex Corina, award-winning screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, Kind charity founder Stephen Yip, Rob McDonald, from the Liverpool John Moores School of Architecture and Tony Siebenthaler, founder of the Downtown Liverpool Organisation.

What do you think, dear readers? Would an elected mayor help raise people’s awareness and interest in local politics? And would such an official actually be able to help local businesses? Let us know what you think…