And, with organisers looking to improve on last year’s figure of 12,000 runners, the Olympic medallists will urge runners to sign-up and make the event another huge sporting success for Birmingham.

Cllr Martin Mullaney, Birmingham City Council’s Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport and Culture, said: “I am delighted to say that the EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon will be back for 2010. Last year’s event was a huge success attracting over 12,000 entrants and we hope that this year even more participants will take part.

“The EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon was introduced as a means of inspiring more people to be more active, more often and its success demonstrates yet again Birmingham’s ability to stage great major events.

“I would like to encourage people from across the city and region to come and be part of this event either as runners and volunteers or just by lining the route and cheering on the thousands of entrants as they take on this challenge.”

The event will once again be sponsored by EDF Energy, one of the UK’s largest energy companies, and will be known as the Race Against Climate Change.

Anyone interested in running in the 2010 event can sign-up via the official website www.birminghamhalfmarathon.com from Monday.

The Sports Fascias performance continues to be satisfactory and has been positively influenced in recent weeks by the upcoming World Cup. The trend of performance in both Fashion Fascias has been positive over the last eight weeks resulting in Bank now showing 0.3% like for like growth over the eighteen week period to 5 June 2010 and Scotts showing a reduced decline of 4.4%.

JD said margins achieved have continued to be encouraging, with particularly satisfactory progress in the Fashion Fascias.

Chausport’s good start to the year has continued and the Board remains satisfied with the foundations being built for future profit growth in other recently acquired businesses. The Group will provide its next trading update with the Interim Results Announcement on 21st September 2010.

The research shows that while 28% of the UK adult population had internet access on their mobile in 2009, just 2.1% used this access to shop online. However, with internet-savvy consumers now accustomed to the multichannel environment, they are beginning to embrace m-commerce.

Verdict estimates that in 2009, internet shopping sales via mobiles was worth just £122.9m, 0.6% of total £21.2bn online retail spending. At present, rather than shop, it is clear that consumers are using their mobiles to enhance the shopping experience by comparing prices, researching products and interacting with retailers. Indeed, the findings of Verdict’s consumer research reveal that 11.5% of all UK shoppers are using their mobiles to research before shopping, while 3.8% use them to research, engage and interact with retailers while out shopping.

Malcolm Pinkerton, senior analyst at Verdict Research, said: “Consumers are not spending significant amounts via mobiles and, for now, we believe the true potential for m-commerce is to provide consumers with a valuable tool for research, comparison shopping and retailer interaction.”

Christine Bardwell, senior retail technology analyst at Ovum, added: “The opportunities are there for the most proficient multichannel retailers to claim a share of the growing cross-channel expenditure by exploiting the possibilities provided by mobiles to seamlessly link the online and instore environments.”

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The figures, released yesterday (Wednesday 19 May), position Birmingham as the third most popular retail centre in the UK, narrowly missing out on second place to Glasgow. Birmingham maintained its ranking as the second most popular shopping destination in England behind London’s West End.

Alan Chatham, Chair of Retail Birmingham, said:

“Birmingham’s retail renaissance over the past decade has undoubtedly influenced the city’s reputation and desirability as a visitor destination. These latest CACI figures also highlight the huge economic impact that Birmingham’s retail sector brings to the local economy.

“For the past four years we have managed to secure second place in CACI’s top 50 Great British Centres, so what can we do to improve our ranking in the future and take Birmingham all the way to the number one spot? We need to ensure that Birmingham offers today’s shopper something new and exciting. With Retail Birmingham’s support for independent retailers, our development of a Design Strategy to dramatically improve the quality of Birmingham’s shopping streets and our involvement in the city’s Transport Vision work, we are working to ensure that Birmingham becomes the location of choice for visitors looking for a fully rounded retail and leisure experience.”

The report follows a recent economic study by The Retail Group in conjunction with the Local Data Company, which pointed to low vacancy rates in Birmingham city centre in comparison with other major centres. Birmingham stands at 10.5%, in contrast to 16.4% in Newcastle, 16% in Manchester and 14.4% in Bristol.