Celebrate local businesses

Independent Retailer Month’s Shop Local Campaign, launched by Claire Rayner, aims to highlight the important role smaller, local and independent retailers play in their community, the local economy and in the retail sector as a whole.

Skillsmart Retail and the British Independent Retailers Assocation (BIRA) have teamed up around the country to to encourage the public to celebrate diversity on the high street as part of the campaign which will run throughout July.

The campaign’s focus is three-fold - to encourage shoppers to vote with their feet to save the high street, to encourage retailers to increase consumer engagement, footfall and sales and to encourage suppliers and those serving the independent retail sector to spread the word.

Gainsborough town centre manager David Hawkins urged members of the public to keep an eye out for the campaign posters in shops around town and to show their support.

“They offer a wide range of products and give excellent service,” he said.

“It’s vitally important that we continue to use them and help them to grow.”

BIRA’s deputy chief executive Michael Weedon said the challenges to town centre retailing are ‘many’ and ‘pressing’.

“While concentrating on the hard and very real disadvantages that independents face, such as parking, rates and planning, we know that helping shoppers recognise the enduring virtues of independents, which make up two in every three shops nationally, will bring them back to our towns – the original shopping centres,” he said.