Well – it’s been quite a week, hasn’t it? A fortnight ago, none of us could be sure about the outcome of the EU referendum and while the vote was split pretty much down the middle as the polls had predicted, no-one could have foreseen all the fallout & mud-slinging that’s followed. The four horses of the apocalypse haven’t galloped into town but with the battles still raging both amongst our leaders and their troops, and our social media contacts, one could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that they had!

I’ve a feeling that things aren’t going to calm down for a while yet, too.

Ben Burbidge, of Burbidge Kitchens, believes that now is the time to take strides forward together rather than dwell on what some may feel are negative implications of the vote.

“Inevitably, the coming months and probably years will be uncertain and this may have a dampening effect on the KBB market, as consumers defer making high ticket purchasing decisions and people weigh more carefully the commitment to borrow significant sums to buy into the housing market,” he says. “All we can do is to continue to operate with ‘business as usual’ while we await further news on the exit strategy.”

“As one of the UK’s longest standing private companies, proudly manufacturing in Britain for almost 150 years, we will continue to invest in honing local talent and aiding the wider community.  In this way, we can ensure a ‘Great’ Britain, as we look to the future.”

I strongly believe we can talk ourselves into recession and it’s easy for a throwaway comment to take on more importance than it should and consequently spread doom and gloom like wildfire. Yesterday a market trader complained that petrol prices had gone up locally and it was “only going to get worse”. I checked the Web and prices are actually lower than they were before the vote – they may well go up at some stage but why spread negativity over something that’s not even true? It’s damaging!

I like Ben’s ‘business as usual’ stance and feel it’s one we should all adopt. If we’re confident, others will pick that up and we’ll all do better as a result. For after all, this industry is very much a global one, with goods made all over the place and international teams involved in the process. We all work well together and I’m sure we’d all like it to stay that way! Do you agree?

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Yours,

Jan Hobbs