Liverpool Chamber of Commerce today reports that yesterday’s storms had a negative effect on business with road, rail, air and ferry transport suspended. Local and international services were severely disrupted affecting both passenger moments and freight delivery.

The Chamber estimates that the cost of the storms in terms of lost business and damage to property will run into several million pounds in Liverpool city centre alone.

Brian Kofoed of the Liverpool office of Lysander Shipping reported: “Many of our shipments out of the British Isles and North West Europe were delayed because of vessels could not sail during the high of the storms.”

Roads, though out Merseyside and the North-west are mostly clear this morning.  JLA is returning back to normal, although reporting delays on some flights.

While nationally the picture is slightly different with the storm damage is continuing to affect travel across the country with Virgin Trains West Coast running an emergency timetable today, affecting the London service from Lime Street.

The transport difficulties provided unforeseen opportunities for some with John Morgan of NW couriers reporting increased business, he says: “We must have been one of the few companies that actually had extra business yesterday, the bikes we able to get through and meet delivery targets where larger vehicles couldn’t.”

Businesses in the Bold Street area reported to be worst affected due to flying debris, people were trapped in or locked out of their business premises for several hours during the afternoon. Kate Stewart ,  Development Director of interior design company,  Team a go-go  said: ” At one stage, yesterday, we had five members of staff locked out of office and one locked in! Today, we were also delayed opening up for business as Bold Street was again closed for safety reasons.”

Outside of the city centre conditions were not easier,  MDF Trading in Greenbank Lane, Aigburth suffered, Manager Jim Lawson commented: “We had to close early due to danger from falling tree branches, we lost three hours business.”

The weather caused cancellation of planned events and meetings, a huge drop in footfall as customers stayed inside and road deliveries were severely delayed.  Work was halted on the major city centre construction sites. Many business were understaffed or closed early as they allowed their staff to leave early amidst mass disruption of the roads and transport networks, yesterday afternoon.

Today, sees a massive clean up operation with business owners and tenants only fully able to survey the damage to their premises this morning.

i-start - 31 January 2007

6pm - 8pm ~ Wednesday, 31st January 2007 ~ Radio City Tower, Liverpool

Following on from the success of the launch event last year, i-start is back to help you realise your New Year resolutions. If you want to start your own business, kick start an old idea or need partners to do either then this could be the event for you. We focus on supporting would be entrepreneurs in the ICT and digital media industries and are backed with technical expertise from a team of researchers and developers at ICDC. Whether your idea is for the web, mobile or TV we can help you define and realise your business ambitions.

The guest speaker will be Richard Veal who be sharing his success story in building New Mind, based in Liverpool, from being a 2 man start-up in 1998 to become one of the fastest growing technology companies in the UK as recognised by the Deloitte Touche Fast 50 and Inner City 100 awards received in 2004. Over the last 4 years the company has grown by nearly 1000% and now employs 36 staff, most of whom are software developers.

Also presenting on the evening will be Andrew Davidson who is the Director of Seven Technology based in the city centre. Andrew is launching a new small firm private investment fund called Live Wire and will be outlining how start-ups and existing businesses can benefit from the fund.

i-start is attended by other business support agencies as well as lots of entrepreneurs and is a great way to build up your own address book. The event is run by Digitalinc, ICDC’s digital media incubator at Liverpool John Moores University and is sponsored by Gregory Abrams Davidson LLP.

Why should you attend?
.    Gain encouragement, advice and sources of support
.    Pick up fresh innovative ideas
.    Make new business contacts and potential partnerships
.    Learn from the experience of successful businesses, entrepreneurs and innovators
.    Background briefings on hot current topics
.    Incubation and how it can help get your business to a successful start
.    Access new investment opportunities
.    Understand the advantages of being your own boss
.    Understand how information and communication technology (ICT) and digital media can give you a major business boost!

Event Details

Programme:

18:00    Registration
Networking / Refreshments
Speakers / Q&A
20:00    Close

Venue: Zoo Bar, Radio City Tower, St. John’s Beacon, 1 Houghton Street (MAP link).

Cost: Free event!

Registration:
To reserve your place, you can contact Louise on: l.valerio@ljmu.ac.uk, call 0151 231 4704 or visit the ICDC website for further details.

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