LETTER: Keep Boxing Day special

I hope the MPs of our county have been positively influenced by the debate in the House of Commons on Monday 12 December, namely to close retail premises on Boxing Day.
By The Newsroom
Published 31st Dec 2016, 08:00 BST

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Boxing Day is a most integral part of Christmas and a day of traditional Christmas pastimes. For example there are the Boxing Day hunts attended by much of the community including myself as a private individual. And Boxing Day is a time for unashamed chilling out with with oneself and families and friends.

Shop closure on Boxing Day will have the advantage of ensuring these Christmas pastimes and family times are not crowded out by retail activity. Therefore society wins, as well as, retail workers. Let’s create a Boxing Day with a positive difference and where one can walk down a street without the clang of roll pallets and deliveries.

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Retail also wins with Boxing Day shop closure as more goods will be sold prior to a two-day Christmas closedown. And this will be a massive plus for productivity figures and shareholder value.

Parliament should also consider early closure on Christmas Eve so retail workers can get safely back home given lack of public transport, look after their families and prepare for Christmas.

As well as shop closure on Boxing Day, Parliament should also give serious consideration to shop closure on Remembrance Sunday for obvious reasons of respect for HM Forces and to ensure sufficient time and space for the Remembrance Sunday events. And to enhance the qualities of dignity and decorum one associates with Remembrance Sunday.

I hope our Sussex MPs and County Times readers have had a merry Christmas including a merry ‘second Christmas Day’. In Germany they more accurately call 26 December ‘second Christmas Day’.

John Barstow

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Member, Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) Executive Council, The Fleet, Fittleworth

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Related topics:MPsParliamentHouse of CommonsSussex