Sellafield Ltd, through its SiX (social impact, multiplied) programme, has announced a major investment in LEVELS, a ground-breaking £4.6 million redevelopment of the former Whittles department store in Whitehaven, West Cumbria into a state-of-the-art immersive entertainment and education centre.
Delivered and developed by social impact property developers BEC, LEVELS has transformed a Grade II-listed building into a cutting-edge hub for digital creativity, learning, and interactive experiences.
Across 4 floors, the centre features immersive digital and gaming experiences, an esports arena, interactive learning spaces, and a café—creating a vibrant space for education and creativity in the heart of Whitehaven.
By equipping young people with the skills needed for a digital-first future, the project aims to engage young people, their families, and educators, inspiring the next generation to explore careers in digital and creative technology.
Funding for the project includes £3.3 million from Sellafield Ltd through its SiX programme, alongside £800,000 in funding, equipment, and logistical support from BT, Atos, and Openreach—as part of their social impact commitments through Information and Communications Technology contracts with Sellafield Ltd.
BEC has also contributed £500,000, demonstrating the power of partnership to multiply impact.
Tracey West, Sellafield Ltd’s head of social impact, said:
LEVELS represents exactly what our SiX programme is about—creating lasting social impact by investing in skills, innovation, and opportunity. By collaborating with partners like BEC and our supply chain, we’re helping West Cumbria’s young people prepare for a digital future.
This investment builds on our long-standing commitment to improving education provision in West Cumbria, following projects such as West Lakes Academy, the Whitehaven Campus, the National College for Nuclear, and the Well programme.
Value for money is at the heart of everything we do. Wandsworth is investing in new homes and estate improvements that create lifelong assets for the borough. These homes not only pay for themselves through rental income but also reduce reliance on costly temporary accommodation. Thanks to strengthened prevention work, Wandsworth is now avoiding an additional £3.7 million in temporary accommodation costs every year.
Wandsworth’s Housing Revenue Account, a ringfenced fund dedicated to council housing, is in a significantly stronger position than that of many other stock holding authorities. This strong financial position enables the council to continue ambitious regeneration and development plans while maintaining essential investment in existing homes.
A key milestone was recently reached as the Homes for Wandsworth programme celebrated the completion of its 500th new council home, marking the halfway point toward the borough’s pledge to deliver 1,000 new homes for local residents.
Building on this momentum, the council has announced a landmark partnership with Battersea Power Station to deliver 200 new high quality council homes within the development’s 42 acre masterplan, further expanding opportunities for families in need of secure, affordable housing.
Aydin Dikerdem, Cabinet Member for Housing, said: “Investing in new council homes is one of the most powerful tools we have to tackle the housing crisis and strengthen our communities. Every new home means a family moved off a waiting list and into a secure, comfortable home. And it also saves us money in the long-term, delivering a public asset and reducing expensive temporary accommodation costs. It’s an investment not just in buildings, but in the future of Wandsworth.”
Together, these initiatives reflect Wandsworth’s strategic, long term commitment to ensuring that every resident has access to a safe, secure, and high quality place to call home.
The dollar moved to a one-month high as rising US Treasury yields and looming risk events kept investors cautious ahead of Friday’s payrolls report and a possible Supreme Court ruling on President Donald Trump’s tariffs. A four-day advance put the greenback on track for its strongest week since November, while the yen lagged most major peers. Treasuries extended Thursday’s slide, with the 10-year yield rising two basis points to 4.19%, and S&P 500 futures hovered near flat as markets weighed whether upcoming data could challenge expectations for US interest-rate cuts later in 2026.
Equities faced mixed signals as policy headlines and corporate developments pulled sentiment in different directions. Trump’s proposed $200 billion mortgage-bond purchase plan lifted mortgage-linked stocks, with LoanDepot (NYSE:LDI) and Rocket Companies (NYSE:RKT) jumping in premarket trading. In Europe, Glencore (GLNCY) rose more than 8% in London after resuming talks with Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) on a potential combination that could create the world’s largest miner, though broader risk appetite remained restrained ahead of two closely timed macro catalysts.
Attention is now centered on December payrolls, where economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect 70,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate easing to 4.5%, data that could shape expectations for Federal Reserve policy. Markets are fully pricing at least two quarter-point rate cuts in 2026, with odds favoring an initial move in April, although traders warned that outcomes at either extreme could unsettle markets. In parallel, investors are monitoring the Supreme Court’s pending decision on Trump’s tariffs, which could allow companies to seek refunds on billions of dollars in duties, while oil, gold, and silver traded cautiously amid developments involving Venezuela and Iran.
Impersonation scams are rising, with fraudsters posing as trusted organisations or individuals. Residents are urged to verify all contact and report suspicious activity.
The warning follows incidents in the borough where several residents have reported being targeted by fraudsters. In one report, a resident was contacted by someone pretending to be a “Senior Trading Standards Investigator” from the Chartered Institute of Trading Standards. Another case involved an online investment ad falsely linked to the UK Prime Minister – this was generated using AI. Text messages regarding parking have also been received from fraudsters claiming to be associated with Bromley Council.
Other common impersonations include banks and police, with these scams often being linked to courier fraud. Fraudsters typically reach out via phone calls, texts, emails, or social media. If impersonating a friend or family member, they may claim urgent need for money, gift cards, or help paying bills.
Protect yourself
Pause before you click or reply. Is it genuine? Verify with someone you trust.
Your bank or the police will never ask you to transfer money to a “safe account”.
If you receive a suspicious call, hang up and call the real organisation on a trusted number – ideally from a different phone or after waiting a while.
Never share one-time passcodes or personal details unless you initiated contact.
If you are looking for an investment opportunity, check the FCA InvestSmart website first.
Report and information
Contact your bank if you have given your financial details. Call 159 – Stop Scams UK.
Contact Citizens Advice for help and advice on 0808 223 1133 or on the Citizens Advice website.
Report fraud on 0300 123 2040 or on the Report Fraud website.
Forward suspicious emails to report@phishing.gov.uk.
Report suspicious text messages to your phone provider on 7726.
Report a suspicious website via the National Cyber Security Centre website.
You can also visit the council website for more Trading Standards advice on doorstep crime and scams.
If you have any doubts about someone claiming to be from or associated with the London Borough of Bromley, call 020 8464 3333.
Visit the council website for more information on Bromley Parking Services.
Learn more about how to protect yourself from impersonation fraud on the Take Five – Stop Fraud website.
Learn more about courier fraud on the Report Fraud website.
For more information on the wider ‘scam-scape’, visit the Which? website for an article of the biggest scams of 2025.
For general information about scams in various languages visit the Friends Against Scams website.
Bromley Trading Standards
To keep up with the latest scam alerts and warnings from Bromley Trading Standards sign up on www.bromley.gov.uk/TradingStandardsAlertSignUpForm.
Bromley Trading Standards also runs a fair-trader directory to help you find a safe, reliable trader that you can trust, visit www.bromley.gov.uk/tradingstandardschecked to learn more.
At a Cabinet meeting on January 19, councillors will discuss and decide whether to accept a further grant from the Government’s Local Authority Housing Fund (LAHF) to increase the availability of temporary accommodation in the district – vital for supporting families in need.
So far, NNDC has used grants totalling £1.633m from the LAHF to help acquire 14 homes.
Grants from the LAHF include a requirement to make some of the accommodation available for families under the national Afghan Resettlement programme, although so far, no Afghan families have taken up homes in North Norfolk.
Cllr Jill Boyle, portfolio holder for Housing, said:
“Funding from the LAHF has allowed the council to provide vital accommodation for North Norfolk families. The increased availability of suitable family homes is key to addressing housing need and homelessness in our area – a really important issue for this council.
“So far, none of the properties have been assigned to Afghan families, but the UK Government has made clear we all have a responsibility to these people who provided vital assistance to the UK Military during the Afghan conflicts, and some whose safety was put at risk by a data incident.
“Our success in providing temporary accommodation has also been boosted by the second homes council tax premium. Money from the premium has been ringfenced to support housing need in our area. Both approaches have made a real difference for North Norfolk families.”
Squire Patton Boggs has advised the shareholders of Delmont Imaging on the sale of the company to Rocamed. This acquisition brings together two highly complementary French MedTech players with strong international presence.
The team advising Delmont Imaging was led by Paris Corporate partners Charles Fabry and Anthony Guillaume, assisted by Victor Dransard and Elise Crouzil.
Delmont Imaging, founded in 2016, is focused on improving care and healthcare measures for women by providing gynecological surgeons with innovative solutions. Its products, dedicated to diagnostic and surgical uterine procedures, are now registered in more than 50 countries across the world. Founded in 2011, Rocamed is a global medical device company specializing in endo-urology, developing, manufacturing and distributing a complete product range for urology, with a strong focus on stone management and prostate treatment.
Stuart Morrison, Research Manager, British chambers of Commerce
The latest Quarterly Economic Survey (QES)[1] from the BCC’s Insights Unit once again highlights price pressures as a central concern for UK businesses. Just over half (52%) of firms report that they expect to raise prices over the coming months, reflecting ongoing cost challenges. While the QES is not designed as a formal inflation forecast, its price expectations measure has, over time, proved to be a useful barometer of inflationary pressure in the wider economy.
To understand what the Q4 2025 results are telling us, it helps to place them in a longer-run context.
What the QES price expectations measure captures
Each quarter, the QES asks firms whether they expect to increase, decrease, or hold prices over the next three months. The results are usually presented as the proportion (or net balance) of businesses expecting price rises. This is a forward-looking indicator, rooted in firms’ own assessments of costs, margins, and market conditions.
Crucially, the measure reflects intentions, not outcomes. Businesses may plan to raise prices but later adjust those plans in response to weak demand or competitive pressure. For that reason, QES price expectations should be read as a signal of inflationary momentum, not a point forecast for CPI.
A historic perspective
Looking back over the decades of QES data, a clear pattern emerges. Periods when a large share of firms report plans to raise prices have tended to coincide with, or slightly precede, periods of elevated UK inflation. Conversely, when price expectations in the QES have eased, official inflation has usually followed suit with a lag.
This relationship has been especially visible since the pandemic. As supply chains tightened, energy prices surged, and labour costs rose, QES price expectations climbed to historically high levels. In Q2 2022, 65% of QES respondents said that they expected their prices to rise. By October of that year, CPI inflation had peaked at 11.1%. When those pressures began to unwind, the proportion of firms planning price increases also fell, broadly tracking the disinflation seen in official data.
Source: BCC QES Q4 2025
The link is not mechanical or perfectly timed. Inflation is shaped by many forces beyond business pricing plans, including global energy markets, exchange rates, fiscal policy, and monetary conditions. But the direction of travel in the QES has consistently aligned with the direction of travel in inflation.
What makes the QES a useful indicator
The strength of the QES lies in its timeliness and breadth. It captures real-time intelligence from thousands of firms across sectors and regions, often well before official statistics are available. For policymakers, analysts, and businesses, this provides early insight into whether price pressures are building or easing on the ground.
At the same time, history shows why caution is warranted. QES price expectations tend to be better at signalling whether inflationary pressure is present than at predicting how high inflation will go or how quickly it will fall. In periods of weak demand, firms’ ability to pass on costs can be constrained, even when cost pressures are intense.
Interpreting the Q4 results
Against this backdrop, the Q4 QES results suggest that inflationary pressure remains embedded in the business environment. While expectations are below the peaks seen during the height of the inflation surge, they remain elevated by historical standards. This points to ongoing cost-push pressures, particularly from labour, energy, and regulatory costs, rather than a renewed acceleration in demand.
As we move into 2026, the central question is likely to be whether businesses can absorb these persistent costs without passing them on. If not, inflation could remain a defining feature of the UK economy.
The historic relationship between QES price expectations and official inflation suggests that this persistence matters. Elevated expectations tend to be consistent with inflation remaining above target for longer, even if headline rates continue to ease gradually.
What this means for inflation in 2026
The lesson from the past decade is not that the QES “predicts” inflation, but that it offers an early and reliable signal of inflationary stress within the business community. The Q4 results reinforce the view that, while inflation has come down from its highs, the journey back to more stable price growth is unlikely to be smooth.
Looking ahead, persistently elevated price expectations have important implications for the policy and economic outlook. For the Bank of England, they suggest a case for caution on the pace of interest rate cuts, even as headline inflation continues to ease. If firms still expect to raise prices, underlying inflationary pressure may prove more stubborn than recent data alone imply.
For policymakers, this underlines the importance of tackling the structural drivers of costs facing firms. For businesses, it highlights a trading environment where pricing decisions remain difficult, margins remain under pressure, and uncertainty persists.
As ever, the QES provides a timely snapshot of these realities, and a reminder that inflation is not shaped by nebulous statistics, but by the decisions businesses are faced with every day.
1. Latest updated copy of ACRA Business Profile (including ACRA Business Profile for each sole-proprietorship business owned)
If you have logged in via Personal Tax:
1. Certificate or License issued by relevant approving Authority(ies), if Sole-proprietorship business(es) is not registered with ACRA
You may obtain a copy of the business profile from Bizfile, if you are registered with ACRA.
If you have selected “Yes” for “I have issued invoice(s) for the supplies made” in Question 4 of “Main Form – Business Activities” section, you will be asked to provide:
2. Copies of 3 recent invoices (including shipping documents) issued to your customers OR all invoices if you have issued less than 3 invoices to your customers
If you have selected “Yes” for “I have issued invoice(s) for the supplies made” in Question 4 of “Main Form – Business Activities” section, you will be asked to provide:
3. Listing of your sales/ revenue for the past 2 months and the listing should include Date of Invoice, Invoice number, Name of Customer, Description of sales, Invoice amount
If you have selected “Yes” for “I have made business purchase(s)” in Question 5 of “Main Form – Business Activities” section, you will be asked to provide:
4. Copies of 3 recent purchase/ suppliers’ invoices received, including shipping documents OR all invoices if you have made less than 3 business purchases
Please provide copies of 3 recent purchase invoice and the relevant including shipping documents (if any).
If you have selected “Yes” for “I have made business purchase(s)” in Question 5 of “Main Form – Business Activities” section, you will be asked to provide:
5. Listing of your business purchases for the past 2 months and the listing should include Date of Invoice, Invoice number, Name of Supplier, Supplier’s GST Registration number, Description of purchase, Invoice amount
excluding GST and GST amount
If you have selected “Yes” for “I have obtained a license/ permit/ approval from the relevant authorities to operate my business activities” in Question 3 of “Main Form – Business Activities” section, you will be asked to provide:
6. Copy of License/ Permit/ Approval from relevant authorities to operate business activities
This does not include your ACRA Bizfile.
If you have selected “No” for either:
“I have issued invoice(s) for the supplies made” in Question 4 of “Main Form – Business Activities” section; or
“I have made business purchase(s)” in Question 5 of “Main Form – Business Activities” section
You will be asked to provide:
7. A detailed description of your business plan including how the products and services would be purchased and delivered/ provided, how your business would be financed, a list of your potential/confirmed suppliers and
customers.
If you have selected “Yes” for “Was the business(es) taken over from another GST-registered person as a going concern?” in Question 2 of “Main Form – Business Profile” section, you will be asked to provide:
8. Copy of agreement(s) or document(s) supporting the transfer of business
Please refer to Transferring businesses for more information.
If you have selected “Yes” for “I have documents to support my forecast” in Question 2b of “Main Form – Details of My Taxable Supplies” section, you will be asked to provide:
9. Copy of the signed contract(s), accepted tender/quotation, confirmed purchase order(s), document(s) on transfer or acquisition of business & other documents supporting your forecasted taxable supplies in the next
12 months (You will only be registered on a compulsory basis if the documents provided show that your taxable supplies in the next 12 months will exceed S$1M)
Please refer to the section on “Prospective view” on Do I need to register for GST for
more information.
If you have selected “I purchase imported services from overseas persons and/ or low-value goods” in Question 2 of “Main Form – Business Activities” section, you will be asked to provide:
10. Copy of 1 recent overseas invoice received from your supplier
Please refer to the section on “If you are a non-GST registered business” under “Reverse charge for B2B imports” on Local businesses importing services and importing or supplying low-value goods for more information.
If you have selected “Yes” for “I have documents to support my forecast” in Question 1d of “Main Form – Details of My Imported Services and Low-Value Goods” section, you will be asked to provide:
11. Copy of the signed purchase contract(s) & other document(s) supporting your forecasted Imported Services in the next 12 months (You will only be registered on a compulsory basis if the documents provided show that your Imported
Services in the next 12 months will exceed S$1M)
Please refer to the section on “If you are a non-GST registered business” under “Reverse charge for B2B imports” on Local businesses importing services and importing or supplying low-value goods for more information.
If you are registering for GST voluntarily, you will be asked to provide:
12. Acknowledgement page from the e-Learning Course “Overview of GST”
To get a copy of the acknowledgement page from the e-learning course “Overview of GST”, you must complete the quiz. At the results page, you will be asked to enter
your particulars as follows:
Your Name
Your Designation
Business name
Organisation ID
After you have submitted your particulars, please click on the “Save as PDF” button.
If you have selected “No” for “My Company owns the following sole-proprietorship business(es)” in Question 1 of “Main Form – Business Profile”, you will be asked to provide:
13. Complete list of businesses which are not shown at Business Profile page
