• Swindon & Wiltshire Economy
• Monday July 1 2024
• Author Name: Peter Davison

General Election will trigger ‘significant economic growth’ say South West businesses

Almost half of all South West businesses believe that the General Election will trigger significant economic growth in the region over the next six months, according to research by chartered accountants Monahans.

The region’s largest chartered accountancy and advisory firm surveyed management teams, senior executives, and business owners in more than 300 micro, small, medium, and large-scale enterprises in the South West.

Forty-seven per cent of business leaders and owners said they are confident that market conditions will improve after this Thursday’s General Election. Of these, a third (30 per cent) believe that market conditions will improve significantly.

The findings come on the back of what has been a challenging year for many businesses in the region, with one in four (28 per cent) reporting that their company has made redundancies in the last 12 months.

Inflation and rising operational costs (41 per cent of respondents), energy prices (38 per cent), and generating new business (26 per cent) were the three biggest challenges reported by South West business leaders over the last 12 months.

Generating new business has been a significantly higher challenge for micro businesses in this period, with 38 per cent mentioning it as being a challenge – significantly higher than all other surveyed business sizes.

Although respondents stated that these will continue to be the primary obstacles to growth over the next six months and into 2025, they are expected to ease.

Indeed, the number of businesses seeing inflation and operational costs as a major challenge will fall to 38 per cent, whilst energy prices and generating new business will drop to 27 per cent and 26 per cent respectively.

Dominic Bourquin, head of tax consultancy and corporate finance and partner at Monahans, said: “The economy has yet to kick into gear following the Covid-19 pandemic, but an expected transition of Government this week appears to be giving business owners and leaders a much-needed boost in confidence in the market over the next six months.

“There are signs that this is already starting to happen. Our research found that the regional economy is seeing strong growth within the finance, technology, construction, retail, and professional services sectors. These are expected to play key roles in driving the post-election South West economy forward.”

But he added there is some caution among the region’s businesses.

“One in three (35 per cent) of all business leaders and owners told us that they feel little will change in the economy following the General Election.

“That is understandable in light of uncertainty about the direction of future economic policies, but we expect to see that one in three numbers fall over the next six months, as the market stabilises.”

The research was conducted by Atomik Research during the week of Wednesday 19 and Wednesday 26 June

Pictured: The Houses of Parliament at sunrise. Image courtesy of Pixabay