As the Highcross shopping centre celebrates its third birthday this month, retailers across Leicestershire and the UK will be welcoming some positive news.

Amid reports that the continuing difficult trading conditions will force retailers to begin their Christmas sales as early as November, the Government is looking to lend a helping hand to those businesses balancing their day-to-day operations with staying on the right side of the law.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has recently announced the outcome of the retail Red Tape Challenge, which is part of a continuing review of excessive regulation across various sectors. On the face of it, it is encouraging news for retailers across the city and county.

The Red Tape Challenge retail theme was launched in early April and ran until for just over a month until 10 May, giving the public their say on some of the 21,000 regulations that affect their everyday lives.

The consultation has now led to proposals to scrap or simplify more than 160 regulations, freeing the public and retailers from rules that are unnecessarily burdensome, overly-bureaucratic or redundant.

The suggested changes include replacing various overlapping, costly and confusing laws with a single new piece of legislation and simplifying the procedures for age verification or identification for the selling of age-restricted goods.

Legislation has amassed over time in an uncoordinated way, no doubt with the best of intentions to provide protection to the public in relation to products ranging from bunk beds, babies’ dummies and children’s clothing to pencils, but the review has found that all these can be adequately covered by the existing General Product Safety Regulations.

An example of the government’s wish to promote greater freedom and responsibility and to target legislation on areas of real risk is its proposal to lower the age for buying harmless Christmas crackers from 16 to 12, covered by regulations which ban sales to the public of certain types of firework and age restrict sales.

While there are proposals for many laws to be scrapped or amended, the systematic review of all relevant legislation has found many others to be well-designed and valuable. There will, for example, be no change to the laws on Sunday trading and rules covering the hallmarking of goods.

Although public consultation on changes to legislation will be required before the Red Tape Challenge proposals can be implemented, it is encouraging that the focus is now on striking the right balance between consumer rights and a well-designed legal framework which doesn’t create an unnecessary burden on business.

Aside from simplifying the legal obligations for retailers, these proposed changes also bring with them another added benefit. With the retail economy slowing over recent years, this announcement by Vince Cable brings with it some positive news for many businesses who are feeling the sharp end of tough trading conditions. For many, it means they can stop worrying about upsetting the authorities and concentrate on the running of their shops. For retailers in Leicestershire and across the UK, the changes cannot come soon enough.