Press Releases

Financial Secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke MP, and the Minister responsible for business rates addressed the All Party Small Shops Group today in Westminster to discuss business rates in light of the Chancellor's announcements in last week's Autumn Financial Statement.

Local shops have welcomed the announcement from the Competition Markets Authority to conduct a full market investigation into lending to the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) market.  The investigation will look specifically at lending to SMEs and core products such as business current accounts.

ACS Chief Executive James Lowman said: "We welcome the CMA decision to investigate SME lending. Access to finance and fair bank charges are key to ensuring that local shops can grow and create more jobs in their communities.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has confirmed the appointment of Paul Hagon and Patrick Sewell as chairman and deputy chairman respectively.

Paul and Patrick will take on leadership roles on the ACS Management Board from 1 November 2014, replacing current chairman Jonathan James and Vice Chairman Neil Turton who have been in post since November 2011.

Paul Hagon is the Group Strategy and Development Director for Palmer and Harvey. P&H is one of the biggest delivered wholesale providers in the UK, serving multiple, convenience, forecourt and CTN stores.

Crimestoppers and the Association of Convenience Stores offers reward of up to £10K for information on man wanted in connection with murder of Watford shop owner.

Independent crime-fighting charity Crimestoppers and the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) are offering a reward of up to £10,000 for information leading to the location, arrest and conviction of Michael McInerney

The 32-year-old, of no fixed abode, was arrested in connection with the murder of shop owner Arulchelvam Prasanna last year but failed to answer bail and is still on the run from police.

ACS has published three new guides that form the latest additions to its Assured Advice scheme for convenience retailers. The new Guides provide definitive advice on Weights and Measures, Product Safety and Fair Trading.

ACS Assured Advice is an innovative new scheme that allows ACS to provide advice on trading standards regulation that is definitive and cannot be challenged or changed from on local authority to the next.

The Guides include:

Convenience store retailers from across the UK have gathered in Westminster to call on Government to reform the system of business rates.

The Association of Convenience Stores, a trade association of over 33,500 shops representing an industry worth over £35bn to the economy, has called for the following measures to make the business rates system fairer at their annual political conference:

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has responded to the Work and Pensions Select Committee into the auto enrolment pension scheme, raising concerns about the impact of the plans on the smallest businesses and their staff.

The auto-enrolment process will see most convenience stores begin to enroll their staff in June 2015. Under the new law all staff must be automatically enrolled in a pension when commencing employment. Under the scheme employers will be required to pay 1% (rising to 3% by 2018) of the employees annual salary into the pension scheme.

Planning minister Brandon Lewis MP has admitted that Government does not monitor the effectiveness of planning rules designed to promote investment in town centres.

As part of an evidence session conducted by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, the former high streets Minister  told the Committee that town centre first planning rules were a matter for local authorities to deal with as part of their local plans, despite fewer than one in seven actually having plans in place that comply with the NPPF.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) and the Federation of Wholesale Distributors (FWD) have pressed for more action to tackle duty fraud and the illicit trade in alcohol and tobacco at a meeting with Priti Patel MP, the Exchequer Secretary.

ACS is holding an EGM on 4 December at which it will ask members to vote on changes to its constitution to allow any convenience store operator to become a member of the Association.

ACS Chairman Jonathan James said: “As the market changes, we have found that our current constitution excludes many potential members, including franchises run by major multiples with independent retailers.  The ACS board agreed that these changes are necessary to ensure ACS is a broad-based, inclusive and effective organisation moving forward.