Driving in France - where to fill up?

Curiously, although the number of cars on the road in France has doubled, the number of filling stations to serve them has dropped from 14,700 in 1975 to 11,270 in 2016 - and reducing as more independant garages are forced to close due to low margins on petrol and diesel sales, and - I suspect - the rise in lease/purchase deals on new cars offered by the manufactueres which include service and maintenance.

Particularly hard hit are car owners searching for a filling station in town - try filling-up in central Paris or any other large/medium sized city? - and remote villages where the local garage has closed due to lack of business or retirement of its owner.

Some small communes have started offering a solution by establishing and operating a 'community filling station' including provision for hybrid/electric vehicles, which is owned by the mairie. Car owners in some cases have had to drive 20 kms or further just to fill-up and make sure they always had a full tank.

Filling stations are owned either by the petrol companies or retail chains, more or less in esual proportion. While charging points for hybrid/electric vehicles are owned by a range of opeators including EDF and other operators. Sme are attached to existing filling stations, others are independant, though total numbers are difficult to estimate but some put the figure as high as 10,000 (outlets? individual charging points?), but what is clear is that this market is growing - rapidly.

Posted by peterdanton@orange.fr

Boom in temporary work-space rentals for small business start-ups

Start-up business from solo operators to small groups of partners are often faced with the dilemma of where they can work together during the all important  try-out period without eating into scarce funds needed to launch the new enterprise.

One solution may be to rent temporary offices or a workspace - from a single desk and chair through to meeting rooms, conference facilities, showroom, and catering services - now widely available through a network of operators and offered for a period of a single day upwards.

Among the largest operators in Europe are OfficeRiders (short term renters are known in France as 'riders') offering a wide selection of sites from Paris to Montpellier in the south. Another operator - Spaceshop London - is also expanding into Europe, along with (the largest?) American group Heywork USA.

Work-spaces can be hired from an average 15 to 20 euros per person per day and even solo operators may find they enjoy the opportunity of working and sharing ideas with other small business start-ups.

If you own a suitable property and have some spare space you might wish to consider contacting one of the operators who take care of marketing, taking bookings and collecting payments, and doubtless a commission.

An article about the Swedish model 'Hoffice' and links to a number of operators appears today on the bbc.co.uk website.

Posted by peterdanton@orange.fr

French shopping centres still popular - but for how much longer?

I last wrote in March 2015 about shopping centres - known as centres commerciaux - which are still flourishing in France, against trends reported in America. The contrast is remarkable but they say that where America leads the rest of the world follows - eventually. At the moment the two countries present a diametrically opposed oicture as the following statistics show.

Taking the USA first, there are an esimated 1 500 'shopping malls' and of these some experts estimate that 15 to 20 per cent, perhaps even one-third, are threatened with closure within ten years or less. The reasons given include online shopping - now accounting for 6% of retail sales and growing at some 8% per year - while Amazon alone has surged ahead with a 28% spurt......

America's giant retailers - J C Penney (1000 stores), Macy's (700) and Sears (600) - have been the stalwart pioneers of the American mall but are among the first to feel the impact of new ways of shopping. And when they decide to pull out of a shopping mall, some 200+ retail outlets can be affected as visitor numbers decline.

American commentators recount how the early shopping malls of the 1950s and 60s fulfilled a social role where you got to together with family and friends, wanted to see and be seen, joined others for coffee or meal, and enjoyed some of the adjacent attractions such as a cinema. It was normal to spend a whole day out.

Not surpisingly France and other European countries caught up with the trend and today - after Russia !) - Franc has the largest number of out-of-town shopping centres, currently numbering 1 200 sites. Leading the Top Ten is the Les Quatre Temps centre near Paris, with 228 shops and 46 million visitors annually, down to number twenty O'Parinord (83) with 210 shops and 12 million visitors.

The development of shopping centres was initially controlled by the loi Roger of 1973 which originally included a number of conditions - environmental, aiding job losses in town centres - which were gradually watered down and currently a further 2 million square mettres are added each year.

The spread continues and even in smallish towns such as my own (Perpignan) where there are centres commerciaux to the north, south and east of the town, with more planned, and dominated by huge retailers such as LeClerc and Auchan. A recent spectacular failure however has been the Centre dell mon built around the new TGV station with 15 shops (all closed) and two large hotels. There is talk of creating more offices or  using it to expand part of the local university. Reasons for the failure included lack of parking spaces, difficult access by a one-way street and the fact that rail passengers simply did not shop in the middle of their journey (many were going south to Barcelona or north to Paris!).

Figures for UK retailing show that Britain has some 46,000 shops lying empty (about 13% of the total), one third of them for longer than 3 years. Numbers of town centre shoppers (known as 'footfall') were 4% down according to recent figures, and out-of-town by 1.6% - both trends blamed on the rise of on-line shopping which now accounts for over 13% of all retail sales.

Posted by peterdanton@orange.fr

'Garden villages' 2

Following my post below about the British government's decision to 'help the housing crisis' by creating a series of 'garden villages' and the various comments in the Guardian and other newspapers - mostly critical - and my story about moveable/transportable wooden houses in America.

A colleague contacted me about a similar situation in Australia where it was quite common for owners wanting to move to another area to buy a plot of land and take with them their existing wooden home, using a transporter. The whole idea is to keep down prices and continue to enjoy the home they have invested with a lot of time and effort, and money.

And going back to the American example shown on a French TV series, just to reiterate that the re-sale prices of refurbished homes are often less than $30 000: even with the cost of further transport to the owner's new site and preparation of the necessary foundations, connection to electricity, water, sewage etc, The price of the entire operation can still be under $45 000 - in marked contrast to the 'average prices' being quoted for the British 'garden villages' which have been estimated at between £250 000 to £450 000!

Among the many adverse comments on the British proposals by those fearing that England, particularly the south-east, could become a giant garden suburb, a contributor writing from Spain notes that his country have managed to get the balance about right. Inner cities are highly developed, with apartments occupied above ground floor shops etc, leaving the countryside free of urban sprawl. He notes that to reach a housing density equivalent to that of Britain, Spain would have to increase its population from 47 million to 200 million.

Posted by peterdanton@orange.fr

  

'Garden villages' as a housing solution?

This post is prompted by an article in the Guardian about the government's plan to create 14 new 'garden villages' in different areas of England from Cornwall to the north-west (though excluding Scotland and Wales) and build a total of 48,000 new homes. Many of the proposed developments will be on green field sites and away from existing towns and villages.

Among the 800 readers' comments already registered - mostly not in favour of the proposals - many complain about the lack of infrastructure in the plans, and the need for new roads, railway lines, stations, shopping and other facilities, as would-be residents would need to commute to work, shop and enjoy their leisure in the nearest town. 

Writing from France, it is interesting to contrast this proposal with concerns about the decline of many French small towns and villages, as many younger people leave to find work in Paris, Lyon, Toulouse and the other major conurbations, and farmers are leaving the land. As a result many surviving villages are left without shops and other basic facilities and are populated by older people and owners of second homes during the high season. 

What many of the Guardian commentators also suggest is that more emphasis should be placed on protecting and preserving town centres, where many properties above offices and shops lie empty, former factories and warehouses could be re-develeoped for housing, and older properties renovated instead of being demolished - offering homes nearer to where the jobs are, and reducing the need for daily commuting from outside town and creating additional problems of traffic congestion (on roads and rail in London) and pollution (Paris).  

The neglect of town centres leads in turn to unoccupied shops and the shift of commerce to the huge out-of-town shopping centres that continue to appear in both Britain and France, even though their decline is well documented in America. 

And talking of the USA reminds me of a very interesting programme on French TV (Channel 22 'Renovation impossible') which documents how  it is possible to purchase for less than  $1000 a rundown wooden house, which is then transported by road for around a further $5000 to the desired site and renovated for an average $15,000 and is ready for re-occupation - a new home for under $30,000. Most of the properties shown are large enough to provide a living area with open-plan kitchen, one to two bedrooms, and a bathroom/WC. Sold at auction they attract mainly young married couples just starting out or elderly couples looking to downsize in retirement.

Posted by peterdanton@orange.fr 

Sharing work-space, co-working etc

Headline news in a couple of the morning papers in France today - a huge development of the former offices of Areva into a series of short-term rented offices and workspaces.

Nothing new here though, if I look back at least 30 when I lived and worked as a freelance writer and PR consultant (from home) in Central London. The Barley Mow Workspace in Chiswich was well establised and I remember going to visit it, as well as a shared open space in the heart of Covent Garden where a PR colleague had set up his office renting just two or three desk spaces.

All this was well before the invention of co-working, crowd-funding - although felixible working hours,  part-time and shared working, and of course freelancing were well established in the UK, well ahead of France who are now discovering all these alternatives as something new.....

As early as the 1980s experts like Charles Handy were already talking of portfolio working - which he described as a work life based on changing employer or jobs, even one's profession at least six times in our lifetime, interspersed with unemployment, time off for a sabbatical or studying.

My modest contribution* to the debate was written in 1991 and picked up a lot of these themes. I earned my two degrees by part-time study while in my fifties.

PS Since I wrote this entry, new research from America (where else?) indicates that after all, open plan offices do not contribute to better working and increased output! Most are disliked by users, who find that any 'collaboration' generally means a distraction and is not helpful, destroying concentration for an average 20 minutes. Some firms are now reverting to old fashioned smaller offices - 'with a window and a door' according to one boss - and find that productivity has improved significantly. When a discussion is required, moving to a special conference room helps prepare the brain for the business in hand, according to one psychologist.

* 'Europe's New Business Culture' Peter-Danton de Rouffignac, Pitman, London.

Written by peterdanton@orange.fr

Homeless in France.....

An two-hour documentrary in the Channel M6 series 'Zone Interdete' managed to throw some light on the problems facing homeless families in France - the figre of 4 million was quoted but no further explanation offered.

The choice of people whose experiences were featured was intresting - two of the subjects featured had strong family connections, another was coming out of a separation, and a fourth - described as 'bourgeois', a young man in his early twenties with a university degree and sleeping outdoors in a remote forest under a flimsy canvas an a friends of number three, but whose history was briefly covered. The fifth personality was a youngish country dweller who had experienced problems when his business collapsed, but owned some farm land which he converted - possibly illegally - as a campsite for homeless people. Using a charitable trust as the mechanism, he had single handedly created a tight-knight community that was accepted by the neighbours.

The situation of the first two was fairly similar. The first couple (and their school-age daughter) spent their time travelling round France in a (fairly) luxurious camper-van, made available to them by the husband's parents whom they appeared to visit fairly regularly. Clearly the parents were reasonably well off, their home seemed large and well equipped, but there was no talk of the trio being accomadated there fulltime/ they drove aff after one visit to continue their tour of France, picking up low-paid temporary farm work where they could.  

The second case was a solo father struggling to bring up two young children in an 'apartment' created out of a basement utility area, that was clearly illegal and subject to flooding, and owned by a couple of unsympathetic landlords. Towards the end of the documentary it was slowly revealed that the father had a (large) family abroad - I think it was Morocco - to where he finally sent the children whome he joined later on. The final pictures were of the three of them on a sunny beach 'back home'.

What intrigued me most was the relationship between the son/daughter in difficulties and the parents/family, and how far the latter were prepared to go to help. There appeared to be an element of 'thus far but no further' (loan of the camper van) and not a lot of sympathy as the son's business had collapsed with six-figure debts, which probably caused distress to a number of other small businesses owed money by the collapsed business. In the second case, one wondered whe the single father had waited so long, dreaming of better housing which realisically was never going to be available, before appealing to what he admitted was his well-off foreign family.

Clearly the worst case situation if you are homeless is to be abandonned by your family and these cases presented a sort off half acceptance of the son or daughter (temporarily) in difficulties. Strange attitudes I feel when in later life the parents may well be calling on their sons and daughters to help them when they get older and are in need of care.....

Posted by peterdanton@orange.fr