Euro edges into the High Street

NEWSAGENT WH Smith and top pub group Laurel have joined a growing band of British companies that will accept the euro after it is introduced on 1 January next year.

Britain is not officially switching to the single currency, but many major firms are spending millions of pounds preparing to accept euros from tourists and Britons returning from foreign holidays. They will receive any change in sterling, but euro supporters hope that wide use of the euro on the High Street will help persuade Britons to vote to join the single currency if and when the Government finally holds a referendum.

Marks & Spencer is introducing special tills in its major stores at which customers will be able to pay in euros. Virgin, Arcadia and Boots say that they will also take the new currency.

Body Shop will accept euros in its central London and airport shops, but W. H. Smith will take them nationwide. Arcadia, which owns Top Shop, Miss Selfridge and Burton, said: 'We're all ready. Our staff have been trained in our central London stores and outlets at ports, so people will be able to walk off the ferry and spend their euros.'

Britain's pub groups, including the third biggest, Laurel, are following suit. Maureen Heffernan, Laurel's director of communications, said: 'We're doing it to help both tourists and our regular customers who want to spend their foreign currency in their local pub. It's going to be creeping into the country anyway.'

The British Tourist Authority said that last year, 12.9m people from eurozone countries visited the UK and spent an average of £310 each.

And Thomas Cook's research shows that people return from holiday with an average £108 per person in foreign currency.

A spokesman said: 'People won't want to keep large sums of euros at home, so it's quite possible that they will spend them here if retailers such as M&S accept them.'

The move has been welcomed by pro-euro pressure groups. Simon Buckby, campaign director for Britain in Europe, said: 'It makes sense to let holidaymakers back from Europe spend their euros. And it will help us in a future referendum because people will actually know what they're voting about.'

But J D Wetherspoon, whose pubs were used by Business for Sterling's No campaign to launch its opposition to the euro, is unlikely to accept them.

Chairman Tim Martin said: 'I suppose we might take the euro out of novelty value. But if we do, we would want to pass them on as quickly as possible because I'm convinced that the single currency is going to collapse.'