The Lloyds Bank Wholesale Banking and Markets Business Barometer fell to minus 21% from 26% last month, meaning most respondents are negative on the view of the economy.
The eurozone crisis continued to escalate throughout May as fears grew over the health of the Spanish economy and the possibility of Greece exiting the euro.
Trevor Williams, chief economist at Lloyds Bank Wholesale Banking & Markets, said: "The renewed concern around the eurozone is clearly having an impact on businesses' sentiment towards prospects for the UK economy and, to a lesser extent, to their own prospects."
Companies also became less confident about their own prospects, although the decline was not as severe as the sentiment towards the broader economic outlook.
Businesses' confidence in relation to their own prospects currently stands at 35%, down eight points on April's 43%, Lloyds said, which still remains higher than during the worst of the financial crisis in 2008/09.
The survey data suggest an underlying 0.2% growth in gross domestic product (GDP) between April and June, Lloyds said, but only once the impact of the Diamond Jubilee is taken into account, which is likely to have reduced growth by 0.5 percentage points.
The most notable declines in confidence in May came in the North and Midlands and in the retail and distribution sector.
The deepening troubles in the eurozone have also hit confidence on stock markets.
Debt-ridden Greece, which is in its fifth year of recession, faces a crucial election later this month, which has been branded a referendum on whether it will stay in the eurozone and stomach more painful austerity measures.
Meanwhile, there are fears over the health of Spain's banking sector, after its fourth biggest lender, Bankia, said it needed a 19 billion euro (£15.2 billion) bail-out. In the UK, banking stocks have been among the worst hit.
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2012, All Rights Reserved.
A day in the life of a mall rat: Reporter finds it’s not just shopping that brings people to West Acres - INFORUM
FARGO - I’m hardly someone who enjoys shopping. I get rather impatient when having to deal with large crowds. And food court fare doesn’t always seem to agree with my delicate digestive system.
So it’s weird finding myself spending an entire day, as I recently did, at West Acres Shopping
Center for a slice-of-life look at a day as a teen mall rat.
Fresh off a year of school, these boys and girls of summer are flocking to the mall for a hangout that’s safe, free and out of the elements.
So I dressed in my best teen-going-to-the-mall disguise, and set off to spend a day living the dream as a full-time American consumer.
9:15 a.m.
I roll into the strangely empty West Acres parking lot an hour before stores would begin opening. One benefit of arriving so early is that at least I’d have a good parking spot.
As I scope out my options for breakfast, I realize, almost too late, that I’m directly in the path of four mall-walkers.
They bear down on me at breakneck speed in what seems like a game of chicken.
I get out of the way just in the nick of time.
It’s a jungle, the mall. Only the strong survive here.
At this time of the day, there are few teens but plenty of tennis shoe-wearing adults. Small clumps of white-haired folks having coffee are spread throughout the food court, and I make my way over to one of the tables.
The group, made up of two couples – Deanne and Jerry Larson and Marian and Wally Salzwedel, all of Fargo, comes to the mall every weekday from about 8 to 10 a.m.
For the first hour, they mall walk, and for the second hour, they relax with coffee and just chat.
The Larsons have been coming to the mall for about four years, and the Salzwedels for closer to seven.
The group has made the mall their daily destination, Jerry Larson says, because it’s a large and welcoming indoor space well-suited for social interaction.
“We could walk outside, but then we’d miss the social aspect,” he says.
“Monday through Friday, you see the same people every morning,” Deanne Larson says, which makes the mall feel like a little family of sorts.
10:20 a.m.
Most of the stores opened about 10 minutes ago, and the crowd is starting to pick up.
I pack up my computer in the food court and make a couple of rounds through the mall, looking for things to do to pass the time, like a teen with no car and little money. Being a journalist isn’t much different, I realize.
Turns out, there is more to do than you might think.
Aside from the television and the large aquarium down by Sears, the player piano by Herbergers or the kaleidoscopes by JC Penney, there’s also the mini library in the center of the mall, with several shelves full of regional books.
One particular book there caught my eye: “Just How Much Scrap Lumber Does a Man Need to Save?”
I’ve always wondered.
11:30 a.m.
Of all the people I saw in the mall on Friday, these two stood out the most: Noah Fiedler and Ethan Curtis, two guys who had just finished their last day of fourth grade the previous day at Rothsay, Minn., Public Schools.
The boys were taking laps through the mall, wearing some huge fake mustaches that they had purchased earlier in the morning.
When asked about their facial hair, both boys shrug as if it wasn’t a big deal, and proceeded to ask me for directions to a store I didn’t recognize.
Needing to protect my cover story as a mall rat, I give them directions.
I hope they made it.
2:45 p.m.
The mall’s gotten quieter as the noon crowd thins out, but I’m still finding plenty of things to do.
After eating lunch, I’ve spent the last couple of hours people-watching in the center seating area and watching the movie in the Roger Maris museum. Who says there’s nothing to do here?
3:50 p.m.
After checking out the mall’s various artwork, (Alissa Sorum, the mall’s marketing director, told me that all photographs are by local photographers, and that more than 100 local and regional artists are represented throughout the building), I wander over to a group of teens sitting in the center court to find out directly from the source what makes a mall rat want to spend time here.
Angel Guarneros, Angel Ramirez and Anna Meyer, all eighth-graders at Ben Franklin Middle School in Fargo, were spending the first day of their summer vacation here, and the three say they’ll likely be spending a lot more time in the mall this summer.
Asked about what exactly the mall’s appeal is for teens such as themselves, the girls’ answer sounds familiar to what I heard from the older crowd earlier in the day – it’s simply a nice place to socialize with other teens their age.
“It’s big, and you can walk around and not get in trouble for it,” Ramirez says.
4:45 p.m.
It’s not just teen girls who enjoy the mall, it turns out. I make my way over to a bench in the food court, where ninth-grader Jake Roy, eighth-grader Isaac Roy and 10th-grader Wesley Possen, all of Fargo, admit they come here two or three times a week, sometimes hanging out for four or five hours at a time.
“It’s something to do,” Possen says.
“It’s an open space, where we can see other people,” adds Jake Roy.
The mall’s appeal for both young and old was starting to make sense to me.
I still don’t enjoy large crowds, but I was beginning to see West Acres as more than just a shopping center. It’s also a community space.
6 p.m.
As my workday winds down, I realize I’m actually quite tired. Aside from all the socializing with cliques both teen and senior citizen, I also had my picture taken in the mall’s photo booth (by myself, so I could remember the experience), shopped a little (but like a good mall rat didn’t actually buy anything) and played with puppies in the pet store.
And as a result, I’m beat.
Being a mall rat is exhausting. How do these teens do it?
I’m ready for a nap. Where’s the mattress store? I wonder what my sleep number is.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Sam Benshoof at (701) 241-5535
Galloway calls off meeting over Bradford shopping mall protest - yorkshirepost
BRADFORD West MP George Galloway has cancelled a meeting with the city’s Chamber of Commerce after its president criticised the Occupy Westfield protests as being “damaging” to the city’s reputation.
The Respect politician pulled out of the scheduled meeting later this month with Stephen Wright saying that “clearly Mr Wright and I have nothing polite to say to each other”.
His comments came after Mr Wright issued a statement in which he claimed that the sit-in protesters at the stalled-shopping development were “doing more harm than good” and were only serving to “undermine the activity being done to paint Bradford as a worthwhile place to invest”.
However Mr Galloway said that it was “rampant unemployment, a massive hole in the heart of the city and an iconic building done up in bubble wrap which are harming the image of Bradford”.
The Occupy Westfield protest – designed to bring attention to the lack of progress on the city’s shopping centre – has had the backing of the Respect Party, with several members having taken part in it.
Mr Galloway said: “Just ask businesses surrounding the Westfield hole how business has suffered since it was dug.
“I wholeheartedly support the occupation of the site as a way of drawing attention to the failure of this council and the developers to even lay one brick there, and as a way of putting pressure on both of them either to start the development or get out of the way and allow others with fresh ideas to take over.”
The Occupy Westfield protest is now in its second week, with around 40 Bradford residents having set up camp in the middle of the 10 acre hole where the shopping centre is planned to be built.
Protesters, displeased with the lack of progress on the construction, have been demanding meetings with politicians and are calling for a public inquiry. They also plan to meet city centre businesses today to see how they feel about the protest group’s actions.
Westfield took control of the site in 2004 and demolished large swathes of the city centre to make way for the £300m mixed use shopping centre and leisure development. It mothballed this scheme in 2009 and now has plans for a smaller shopping mall.
Although work has yet to begin on construction Westfield has consistently maintained it is committed to the scheme, a view supported by the Bradford Chamber and Bradford Council.
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