Should shops shut on public holidays or should we keep on bargain hunting?

THE Christmas and New Year period is a wonderful time for people to show their consideration for family and friends by buying them presents, as well as grabbing bargains for themselves.

The decorations in the streets and shops add to the festive atmosphere.

Of course, it is vital that there is good access to the shops, with a good choice of transport providing for people with light shopping needs and for those who are purchasing many goods or bulky items.

• Graham Jones, from ROX

Good access should mean well-managed routes that do not create unnecessary congestion, even at this busy time of year, with any inconvenience to residents and other road users kept to a minimum.

Although buying online is becoming more and more popular, it cannot replace the fun of seeing the actual products and, where possible, testing them out. With items like clothing, it is particularly important to check the nature and quality of the material and the finish.

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From the retailers’ point of view, this period of trading is by far the most important one of the year. Some 3m people in the UK, and about 9 per cent of the Oxfordshire workforce, are employed in the retail sector. The shops need to be successful now so that they and their employees can positively look forward to the year ahead.

In recent years, the independent shops have been put under a new form of pressure, with most of the large chain stores giving big discounts in the run-up to Christmas.

Traditionally this has been a time to boost profits, prior to the sales when old stock could be cleared from the shelves for new products and seasonal goods, but the whole period now appears to be more about turnover and cash flow.

The early signs are that the beleaguered High Street has started to turn itself around from a very gloomy situation only a few years ago.

However, it will be interesting to see various analysis released over the next few weeks on how different stores within the retail sector have performed.

Hopefully most shoppers and retail employees have enjoyed this special trading time from both sides of the counter.

• Sallie Wright

KEEP THE SHOPS CLOSED
Says Sallie Wright, 70, a Bicester resident

WHY are people obsessed with Boxing Day shopping? Let’s take Bicester Village as an example. Shoppers come from all over the world to reach this phenomenon.

They get in their cars to head towards this Mecca of the shopping world, queuing for up to three or four hours along the M40, the A34, the A41, and all other major roads towards Bicester.
When they do eventually reach Bicester they will park as near as they can to the Village, even if that means parking in the middle of the road on the islands, on clear ways that have no parking cones, on any grass verge they can find and in residents private driveways.

They enter the village and the bright lights must addle their brains, because they then queue for two and a half hours to get into the shop of their choice.
They then queue to pay for their items, they queue to buy food and drink, they queue to use the toilet facilities and finally queue to drive away from the Village only to queue on the roads to get home. Is this the new festive fun?

Shoppers have caused considerable nuisance to Bicester residents by the way they park and the amount of traffic coming into what is supposed to be an eco town.
It has cost Bicester Village a considerable amount of money to pay for a specialised car parking management company to direct traffic over the Christmas period, they are paying for extra police officers to be on duty during this time and they have paid to have landscape gardeners put right the grass verges that were ruined by people illegally parking on them.

Is this the way our Christmases will be in the future? I really hope it isn’t.
Over the years it has become more and more common to hit the shops on Boxing Day because we, as a nation, have become so materialistic.
What has happened with Christmas spent with their families and loved ones and eating leftover turkey and veg on Boxing Day?
When I was younger Boxing Day used to be the time when family would call round, children would play with the toys they received on Christmas Day and if the weather wasn’t too bad, we used to go for a walk as a family.

These are things that families no longer seem to do.
I think we should go back to basics and not allow shops to open on Boxing Day, public holidays and Sundays.  When this was the case not so very many years ago, life was so much simpler.

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