News

The Department of Health & Social Care has published details of a new consultation on ‘Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping’, setting out a range of options to reduce vape product availability to young people and introduce new laws that would stop anyone born after the start of 2009 from ever being able to legally purchase tobacco. 

The 2023 Forecourt Report, published today by the Association of Convenience Stores, has highlighted the challenges and future opportunities for forecourt convenience retailers amid a changing fuel and vehicle market. 

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has signed up to a call to action alongside over 100 organisations, urging the next Government to take action to tackle loneliness.

ACS has welcomed a commitment from Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper MP to get tougher on the ‘epidemic’ of shoplifting gangs through the introduction of new laws for attacking a shopworker.

In her speech to the Labour Party Conference this morning, the Shadow Home Secretary highlighted the issues being faced by retailers and shopworkers across the UK with theft and abuse, and the challenges that they’re dealing with when it comes to getting meaningful intervention from the police.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has highlighted the important role of local shops on high streets and neighbourhood parades at a fringe event during Labour Party Conference.

The event High Streets: Heart of the Everyday Economy looked to explore and examine the important role that businesses on local parades and high streets play in people’s lives and what policy makers can do to support them.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has called on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to give convenience store retailers the incentives necessary to invest in the safety, security and long term future of their businesses. 

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has responded to the Prime Minister’s Conservative Party Conference speech, highlighting the convenience sector’s strong record on age restricted sales. 

In his speech to CPC in Manchester today, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced future Government plans to change the law on the sale of tobacco so that the age of sale rises by one year, every year. Similar policies are already in place in New Zealand. The Prime Minister stated that the vote will be a free vote and not one that is subject to a government whip. 

Book your place at the launch of our 2023 Forecourt Report, taking place online on 12th October at 10am - 12pm.

The virtual launch event will provide you with a first look at the findings of the report and give you the opportunity to be a part of the discussion as we explore in detail how forecourt retailing looks now and how it might evolve in the future.

Confirmed speakers and panellists include:

Book your free place at ACS’ annual political conference Heart of the Community, taking place on 17th October at One Birdcage Walk in Westminster and followed by a reception on the House of Commons Terrace.

This year’s conference will debate how we can deliver safer, connected and more inclusive local communities and will bring together leading retailers and senior politicians to understand how the political environment will impact convenience stores now and into the future.

The Association of Convenience Stores has announced the appointment of Ramesh Shingadia as the new Chair of the ACS board, with Phil Ponsonby (Midcounties Co-operative), Colm Johnson (Booker) and Maria Eaton (MFG) also taking leadership roles on the board.