Press Releases

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) is supporting the launch of a Charter to help make workplaces safer for employers and employees.

Launched on National Personal Safety Day (7^th November) ‘Suzy’s Charter for Workplace Safety’ was developed to help identify and mitigate personal safety risks in the workplace.

The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has worked with ACS and a wide variety of organisations, over the last year including unions, large and small businesses as well as the police and employees themselves to develop the details of the Charter.

Alongside ten other business groups, ACS has written to the Welsh Finance Secretary Rebecca Evans AM urging her to consider more frequent revaluations of business rates in Wales.

The joint letter calls for the Welsh Government to bring business rates revaluations forward to every three years rather than every five years to bring the nation in line with proposals in England and Scotland.

The eleven business groups represent a number of sectors including retail, hospitality, commercial property, construction, and leisure.

Home Office Minister Kit Malthouse MP has committed to a review of the £200 threshold for the police prosecuting shop theft offences after the General Election, as part of a debate on retail crime in Parliament today.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has written to the Minister of State for the Home Office Kit Malthouse MP, calling for an urgent response to the call for evidence on violence and abuse toward shopworkers ahead of a parliamentary debate on prevention of retail crime.

In the letter, ACS revealed that there has been an estimated 200,000 assaults and threats of people working in retail and wholesale sector since the Home Office’s call for evidence closed.

Retailers and wholesalers have written to HMRC calling for answers over concerns about ongoing problems with requirements under the track and trace regulations to scan and record the movement and sale of tobacco.

The letter, written by the Association of Convenience Stores and the Federation of Wholesale Distributors to the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, highlights serious concerns over range of issues that remain unaddressed with the introduction of track and trace rules for tobacco products. 

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has responded to a call for evidence from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to help inform the National Food Strategy, highlighting the crucial role that convenience stores play in providing food to their local communities.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has welcomed a Citizens Advice report and renewed calls for Ofgem to protect microbusinesses.

The report from Citizens Advice found that microbusinesses have few protections when buying energy services and experience issues with debt and contract issues caused by minority of third party intermediaries (TPIs).

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has responded to a report from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee on the Future of the Post Office Network.

ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “We are pleased the Inquiry has recognised that rising operating costs faced by retailers make hosting a Post Office more challenging. Leaving local shops to offset reductions in Government’s subsidies is unsustainable and won’t deliver the Post Office network that people need in their communities.

The Association of Convenience Stores has launched new Assured Advice for retailers on what to consider when providing water refills in store.

The guidance sets out the different ways that retailers can provide a water refill service in store, as well as highlighting some of the challenges of offering this service, especially for stores where there is only one member of staff behind the till.

Key information in the guidance includes:

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) is calling on the Welsh Government to consider and clarify the impact on small shops of their ‘Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales’ Strategy, published today.

Today (17^th October) the Welsh Government published its ‘Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales’ Strategy which sets out their national ambitions to prevent and reduce obesity in Wales by delivering healthy settings and environments to allow people of all ages to make healthy choices by 2030.