Local shop day

[jenniren]

Sadly not many of us are lucky enough to have small local independent shops close by and I really do envy all of you who do. It's definitely something that would influence any future house move. Our nearest shops are on a large precinct with a huge Asda Walmart, Boots, Next, Homebase and a smallish M&S.

[Fugitive]

The reason we moved to this town in the 1970s was we were buying a high street beauty salon looking for an all year round trade even though this is a tourist area but apart from a Woolworth and a Boots the rest of the shops were independently owned and run. Even better was that it had then, and still does, a twice weekly street market that's grown over the years. We still have family owned butchers, bakers, fruit and veg, delis, cafes, bars, gentleman's outfitters, hardware, hat shops, hairdressers, chip shops and corner shops. The chains like Costa, Waitrose, Fatface, New Look, Blockbusters, Estate Agents and Charity Shops have moved in but the independents, the chains and the street market feed off each other as each sector attracts a different clientele making this town busy, healthy and surviving.

So local shop day is very easy to do living here and I do appreciate this.

[Oojamaflip]

I have a local corner shop selling everything from A to Z, apart from fresh veg, fruit and meat. A five minute walk away we used to have a butcher: now a hairdresser, a grocer: now a hairdresser, a post office: now a hairdresser - yes three hairdressers literally within 30 seconds walk from each other.