What does Alfreton town centre need to get back to its feet?
We asked the politicians vying for seats in Alfreton what the town needs now
High Street, Alfreton (Image: Google Maps)
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We won’t know how Amber Valley Borough Council will look until all of the votes are counted and declarations are made on Sunday afternoon.
The design team at David Nieper (Image: David Nieper)
The business, which turned over £17.4 million in 2020 and employs 300, already has inhouse sewing, knitting and catalogue printing operations.
It plans to extend its apprenticeship programme and last year scooped a Queen’s Award for Sustainable Development.
“For decades cheap labour has encouraged the fashion industry to manufacture overseas with a disastrous effect on jobs here,” says Nieper.
“Currently two-thirds of emissions from UK clothing occur overseas. Manufacturing in Britain makes sustainable sense and businesses accountable.
“Printing and dyeing accounts for over 70 percent of the total carbon emissions in garment production. It’s not acceptable to shift the problem to where it is out of sight and out of mind. A garment from our factory creates 47 percent less emissions than a similar one made overseas.”
Pivoting to PPE
The fashion industry showed its resourcefulness by switching production to create PPE in support of the NHS and UK care homes during the first lockdown. Mulberry’s Somerset factory produced more than 17,000 gowns, while Derbyshire supplier David Nieper (above) created 40,000 garments.
Reiss donated 6,000 metres of fabric in total to both the Emma Willis Style for Surgeons initiative, which was set up to produce scrubs for the NHS, and the Emergency Designer Network, which was established in April by emerging London-based designers Cozette McCreery, Holly Fulton, Bethany Williams and Phoebe English.
Driving donations
Many brands devised clever ways to raise funds to support both the NHS and charities supporting those impacted by the pandemic. Among them, Ted Baker launched the digital pop-up shop, Ted’s Bazaar, with all profits from the sale of merchandise (pictured above) going to charities including Magic Breakfast, which provides meals for school children in