Jewellery shop prepares to close after 7 months

So difficult for small businesses to get going.

Its a shame because its a nice shop. Another business leaving having spent a fortune on a refit. CEC have a lot to answer to and so do the greedy landlords. Massive business rates and huge rents. Wilmslow town centre is starting to look like a ghost town with all the empty businesses. They would rather have empty units than give small businesses a break. The staff in there we really nice and now looking for new jobs. We need to do something about this before our town just disappears !!

Pension funds etc using other peoples cash don't care about a few dozen empty properties and the business rates they attract because they still get their wages paid with your cash. Until punitive, increasing business rates are used on commercial premises as they are on residential this will continue.

Another start-up with inadequate business plan/poor market research?

As part of a plan to bring the Rex cinema building back into use, I would like to see some of the ample space divided into small units (like an indoor artisan market) to act as an incubator for small businesses. This would allow new startups to get started without the massive overheads of a full retail unit and act as a stepping stone before they take on a proper shop in the town.

Unfortunately, the Rex still has its bills to pay. Opening it up to a load of traders wouldnt work. The landscape of the town needs investing in before it starts to copy Altrincham. Essentially; funding needs to be found to alter the parking, the flow of traffic, how the town is perceived and how we can change the late 1980's, early 1990's feel of it. In hindsight, if the town could have missed out on all of this development then it would maintained its history and appeal to shoppers. It speaks volumes that the former Cook and Baker shop has been let. Its the only shop with an older artisan frontage and not a plate glass monstrosity that is the old Cooperative nextdoor.... tenants want good value woth visual appeal - not corperate architectural rubbish.

Sounds like you know more about retail, and what works, than I do Adam. All I know is that is what I'd like...if there was a building full of small interesting retail units, I'd visit it, walk round and inevitably, I'd end up buying something like I do at the artisan!

So difficult for small businesses to get going.

Hello David Jefferay,

Really sad to see yet another business in Wilmslow going (we've just read that Topps Tiles is also going from what were the old golf shop premises.) It must be heart breaking for the owners.

It all adds to the serious 'under trading" problems that both Wilmslow & Handforth continue to suffer.

I'm not a retail expert so I'm unsure what the solution is.

However, allowing big out of town retail developments on leisure & recreational land next to homes on Summerfields Village cannot help either of the two towns can it ?

We recently saw the sad shell which is now Stockport town cente.

Before that happens here, Wlmslow Town Council & Cheshire East must now do everything possible to get developers to focus on town centres first and not on out of town sites.

You and the other Independents are the people to do it.

Regards,

Martin

My daughter lives in Wilmslow and I visit fairly often from London - when I do, and I walk through from the station, I invariably see another shop or business which has closed since my last visit. I'm not going to offer any theory, or suggest solutions, but in response to David's suggestion for 'a building full of small interesting retail units' I can say that there is something similar in my town, supported by the Council, to give these traders an opportunity to start small and grow. Unfortunately, it has not been particularly successful, and I don't think it will survive. David - who are these entrepreneurs, and where are they? if their business idea is so good, they would be trading now, maybe on-line, or on a market stall - maybe in the artisan market(s); but the truth is, there is simply not enough passing traffic or shoppers in Wilmslow to generate the custom needed to keep even the most modest enterprise going. It's a nice idea in theory, but from what I see of Wilmslow, the reality would be untenable.