April - Reasons to be cheerful
Our first Citypoll from earlier this year suggests that things might not be as gloomy as some national media are making out.
The research which took place during February 2009, amongst a sample of 300 people living or working in Brighton and Hove, found that 47% of respondents admitted that they look at how they spend their money more carefully. Similar proportions reported taking advantage of special offers and cutting back on the non-essential items.
At the same time as many as 70% felt either ‘very secure’ or ‘quite secure’ in their current jobs, and almost half of those responding said that they had not been personally affected by the current recession.
What is also clear however is that although four-out-of-ten of us are going out to eat and drink as regularly as 12 months ago, around one-third are going out ‘a little less’ and 17% ‘a lot less’. This is reflected in approximately one-third of respondents who say that they are staying in more – supporting the notion that staying in is indeed the new going out. This has fuelled the trend of ‘homedulgence’, making the most of the home through internet shopping, home delivery, drinking at home and scratch cooking, which from other reports all appear to be booming.
Although as many as half of respondents believed the recession would last for between 1 and 2 years, perhaps the most encouraging aspect is that those who are either ‘very’ or ‘quite optimistic’ about the next 12 months (40%) outnumber the pessimists, with as many as 28% sitting on the fence.
Helen Bailey, Managing Director of Business Blueprints comments: “Everyday we read more and more depressing stories about how bad things are. Certainly in Brighton and Hove our research reveals a much more positive picture for the year ahead.”