Cumbria: “We’re Still Open For Business”

We’ve watched news of the flooding in Cumbria and the surrounding areas with a mixture of pity and panic – how would we cope if the same happened to us? Will this affect our business? Thankfully, support is available for the people and businesses suffering as a result of the floods, and one source of this is Cumbria’s Chamber of Commerce. Below, its chief executive shares his thoughts on the current situation. His key message: Cumbria is still open for business.

Rob Johnston, chief executive of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce
We’re still trying to understand the scale of the problem. There are businesses who have been directly affected by what’s happened, which are quite literally underwater, and there’s those who have lost customers as a result of problems with the local infrastructure. There are a few bridges closed and at least one key road has closed, but the region hasn’t ground to a halt despite the impression the national press is giving. Yes, there are businesses which have been affected and are going through very difficult times, but people have the impression that Cumbria has in effect closed down – that is not the case. Visitor numbers are falling because of this perception, so effectively we’re losing our market as well. It’s hitting us in both directions, from the consumers not visiting and buying to the inability of rural businesses to work to their full capabilities.

The businesses we’re talking about are very important to their communities, and are a big part of our economy. They may not be the most profitable sector in the area but they are integral to the region’s success. The whole supply chain is a concern; we’ve all worked very hard to get a field to fork concept off the ground, and this is a fragile supply chain – when you’re looking at artisan and small-scale producers, anything that breaks that chain is a real issue.

It’s quite a threat, and more information is going to come out in the coming weeks – we’re currently working on a thousand businesses on recovery plans, which gives you an idea of the scale of the issue. The whole of our economy has been hit, so we at the Chamber of Commerce are desperate to get suffering businesses up and running again and to make them more resilient in case something like this happens again. The area in question falls under both Defra and BIS, so it’s worth taking a look at their websites if you’d like to find out more about the support that’s being offered.

The message we’re trying to give is that for those outside of Cumbria who enjoy our products, particularly the more artisanal and locally-produced items, is to make that little bit of extra effort to get hold of them – a lot of our producers are still trading online, and it’s important that they don’t lose their customer base at this difficult time. We’ll be back up and running as quickly as we can, so please don’t assume that producers are unable to fulfil orders. We’re in a tricky situation; as on the one hand we want the government to be aware of the challenges that we’re facing because we need the support to get back up and running as quickly as possible, but we also can’t afford for our customers to think that we’re not there as a result of the message the media is spreading.

We’re absolutely passionate about Cumbria’s food and drink sector, from every size of business, is fundamental to the county – it’s part of our DNA. This side of our offering has really grown in the past few years, and now our food and drink is tremendous. It’s important that people don’t disconnect from that, and that the customer base we’ve worked so hard to build continues to be loyal and to grow. There are independent retailers outside of Cumbria who stock produce from this region, and we don’t want them to assume that because of what they’ve seen on television that we’re not capable of supplying to them. If you are concerned, contact your supplier and make sure. We’ve known some competitors to the producers in our area be very aggressive, so when they see that a Cumbrian food producer is suffering they call up the retailer to muscle in. That’s tough for everybody. A lot of these businesses are marginal and have worked very hard to get where they are, so it’s really important from everyone’s perspective that they continue to be supported by the rest of the supply chain, including retailers.