Edinburgh’s leading independent convenience retailer is set to expand thanks to £725,000 funding from HSBC UK.
Margiotta is set to open up a new store in the city’s Shandon area on Harrison Gardens after using the funding to purchase and fit out the 2,000 sq ft premises, which was previously owned by an architecture firm.
The store will be the family-run business’ second outlet in the Shandon area of Edinburgh. The new space will be used to host food and drink from local suppliers, such as Fortitude Coffee and Heather Hills Honey, as well as a wide range of homeware products. The existing store will remain as a newsagent confectioner with the addition of homemade gelato, paninis and artisan coffee for sit in or take away.
The new premises is almost double the size of its current store in the area and will enable Margiotta to significantly increase its offering of locally sourced produce, as well as kitchenware items.
The new store is due to open in summer this year and is expected to create 16 – 20 new jobs.
Franco Margiotta, Founder and Managing Director of Margiotta, said: “Both we and our customers value local produce from quality suppliers, so we’re looking forward to being able to expand our product range with our increased footprint.
“HSBC UK’s support has helped us to grasp the opportunity to buy this new space, and explore a new venture as we bring to life our first café-style venture at our older store.”
Ash McBrearty, Corporate Relationship Director at HSBC UK, said:“It’s fantastic to see an independent business born and bred in Edinburgh grow and thrive. We’ve enjoyed working with the Margiotta family to help them expand their retail portfolio and diversify their offering.”
Margiotta currently works with over 45 local suppliers.
The store was established in the early 1970s by Franco Margiotta and his brother. Together they opened their first shop in Marchmont selling food and wine. The family business has gradually expanded over the years and Margiotta has 10 shops across Edinburgh and East Lothian, with its 11th store soon to open on Harrison Gardens.
An award-winning family-owned and run Scottish online butcher will soon be home to the UK’s largest dry aging station, after securing a £2 million funding package from HSBC UK.
John Gilmour Butchers is building a £10 million new butchery and retail facility in Wallyford, East Lothian, to meet growing demand.
The company, which supplies dry aged beef and lamb to well-known luxury restaurants, will use the funding to purchase land in Wallyford for its new 45,000 sq. ft. site.
The additional space will hold an office, retail shop and deli, as well as three Himalayan salt dry-aging chambers capable of maturing over 6,000 pieces of bone-in sirloin and ribeye. The dry-aging chambers are dehumidifying units which draw the moisture out of the meat to increase tenderness and flavour.
The expansion will see John Gilmour Butchers take on 40 new staff members, including new butchers and mechanical technicians. In addition, the company will set up a new apprenticeship scheme to encourage young butchers to join the industry.
Daniel Gilmour, Managing Director at John Gilmour Butchers, said: “Growth is always exciting, and thanks to this funding, we’ll be able to fully embrace it by increasing our facilities and workforce.
“This will enable us to not only take on new clients, but service our existing clients to an exceptionally high level. We’re also excited to explore our ambition to export our ‘Gilmour Black Gold range’ to international clients in the near future.
“HSBC UK has been with us every step of the way and the bank’s new online customer support service has played a huge part in this. The team is always on call to assist and they share our vision.”
Coenraad Horn, Relationship Director at HSBC UK, said:“With this funding package, we look forward to seeing the new factory and new business ventures come to fruition. It’s brilliant to see this third-generation family business continuing to flourish.”
John Gilmour Butchers’ deli style retail unit will sell a range of East Lothian products and produce.
The business was founded in 1946 by brothers William and John, and has grown from a small high street store into an online business to business institution, with a burgeoning trade in London. John Gilmour is a popular staple of Scottish industry and has been the winner of awards such as Scotch Product of the Year for their Black Gold range.
Centre for Cities: Planning and transport changes in cities would bring UK 26% closer to its target
Make it easier to build energy efficient low-rise flats and terraces in city centres and suburbs
Improve public transport and charge polluting drivers to halve urban car emissions
Encourage people to ditch their cars post-pandemic
The Government needs to press ahead with planning reform to meet its net zero target according to Centre for Cities’ research in partnership with HSBC UK.
Its campaign should begin in cities which, despite being big carbon emitters, have the best chance of leading the UK to net zero. The report finds that the right policies targeted in cities will being the UK a quarter of the way closer achieving a carbon neutral future.
Doing this this will require the Government to progress its planned reforms as the current system is a barrier to reaching net zero. They encourage housing development in isolated areas over better-connected inner-city and suburban brownfield sites.
Houses emit more carbon than flats, but they accounted for nearly eight in ten homes built in 2019 – an increase of 12 percentage points since 2013. Therefore, providing a more balanced mix of low-rise flats and terraced houses close to city centres would therefore help the UK reach net zero.
Building new homes centrally would also reduce car dependency. If the share of journeys made by public transport rose from one third to two thirds then urban carbon emissions would halve. Therefore, providing good public transport in all cities is essential to reaching net zero.
The number of people using public transport fell sharply during the pandemic and has not yet reached pre-Covid levels. Reaching net zero will be impossible while so many people continue to shun public transport in favour of cars. Policy makers therefore must encourage the public back onto public transport.
They should also introduce charges to disincentivise non-electric car usage and improve the public transport system in all cities. Doing these together could reduce total urban transport emissions by 87% by 2035.
The report argues that, to help cities reach net zero, the Government should:
Make it easier to build new energy efficient homes in city centres and suburbs.
Reintroduce the £2 billion Green Homes Scheme to retrofit existing homes. This would reduce carbon emissions by around 30% across England and Wales’ largest cities and towns.
And local government leaders should:
Improve public transport by bringing buses under public management
Introduce Clean Air Zones that charge drivers of the most polluting vehicles.
Encourage walking, cycling and public transport usage.
Centre for Cities’ Chief Executive Andrew Carter said:“The majority of people in the UK are based in our cities and largest towns. This means that changing the way that we live, work and move around them will be essential if we’re to reach net zero by 2050.
“Because 64% of the UK’s total carbon emissions come from homes and transport, it will be impossible to reach net zero without changes to our planning and transport systems. If the Government does these together it will help it reach its goals of becoming carbon neutral and levelling up.”
Ian Stuart, CEO of HSBC UK said:“This report shows the key role Britain’s town and cities, and decision-makers leading them, are going to play in helping the UK reach its net-zero ambitions.
“Consumers, businesses and local communities will need support from both central and local government if we’re going to make the big lifestyle changes needed over the coming years in the way we travel and in the way we build and heat our homes.
“There is a real opportunity to build a partnership between the public and private sectors to create the new solutions to meet the climate challenge and to open up new green opportunities for growth for small and medium sized businesses right across the country. HSBC UK stand ready to play our part in this partnership.”
Seven new private sector jobs will be needed to create one viable job post-pandemic
Cities will lead economic bounce back but most new jobs are expected to be low-skilled and low-paid.
Government must upskill workers and encourage higher-skilled businesses to invest in cities – particularly in the North and Midlands.
New Centre for Cities’ research in partnership with HSBC UK reveals that Britain’s jobs crisis is bigger than realised as the economy will need to create almost ten million new private sector jobs just to reverse the damage done by the pandemic.
Analysis of Britain’s ‘jobs miracle’ from 2013 to 2019 – when the national economy created 2.7 million net new jobs – finds that 19.3 million private sector jobs were created during this period and 16.6 million were lost. This meant that seven new private sector jobs were needed to create one viable job.
If this pattern repeats post-Covid then 9.4 million new private sector jobs will be needed to get the 1.3 million people who lost their jobs during the pandemic working again.
After the financial crisis big cities created the vast majority of new jobs and are expected to do so again post-Covid. London created one in four of all new private sector jobs (790,300) – equal to 17 Scarboroughs, or 25 Hartlepools. Other big cities also played an outsized role: in Manchester, 152,100 new jobs were created; in Birmingham 99,100 were; and in Glasgow 40,800 were.
In total, Britain’s ten largest cities created almost half (45.6%) of jobs during the ‘jobs miracle’, despite accounting for just 3.5% of land. In contrast, smaller towns and rural areas created 36% of new jobs. These findings underline the important role that big cities will play in helping the country recover from Covid-19.
Contribution of cities and non-urban areas to job creation, 2013-19
Source: ONS, Business Structure Database (BSD)
Many of the jobs lost in the pandemic were in sectors such as hospitality and tourism. While they are expected to recover quickly once the economy reopens, with an estimated three quarters of new jobs likely to come from sectors such as these, relying on them for new jobs will not address years of poor productivity and pay stagnation, particularly outside London and the Greater South East.
After the pandemic, the productivity problem that UK cities face will need to be addressed.
To do this the Government should invest in adult education to train people for higher-paid jobs in emerging industries. It should also recognise the crucial role that cities will play in building back better from the pandemic. It should invest £5 billion in a new City Centre Productivity Fund to make struggling city centres more attractive places for high-skilled businesses to locate.
The paper’s other proposals to help the country build back better from the pandemic include reforming business rates, which in their current form are a tax on business investment, and devolving more economic powers and resources to local government – particularly England’s metro mayors.
Centre for Cities’ Chief Executive Andrew Carter said:“Britain’s biggest cities will play a central role in our recovery from the pandemic, as they did after the last economic crisis when London alone created a quarter of all new jobs.
“We must use Covid-19 as an economic reset and address many of the long-standing problems that the economy has faced in recent years such as stalled productivity and stagnant pay. To do this the Government will need to focus on investing in adult education to train people for higher paid jobs.
“Addressing these problems will be be essential if the Government hopes to attract higher-skilled businesses in emerging industries to cities and large towns in the North and Midlands and meet its levelling up objectives.
Ian Stuart, CEO, HSBC UK said:“The employment challenge ahead for the country’s economy cannot be underestimated.
“Beyond the sheer volume of new jobs required, the UK will need to create high value, export-led employment across all regions, if it is to address the age-old productivity puzzle.
“Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, we will only truly succeed in levelling up the country if the challenge is shared between government and the private sector with a focus on reskilling our people and attracting new business growth and international investment in the sectors where we have a real competitive advantage.”
