Support Our Small Shops

A campaign to protect our local shopping areas

Richmond has long enjoyed a reputation for being a dynamic and desirable shopping destination. Historically this impression was gained by a strong collection of reputable and smart shops in the town centre itself, its paved lanes and surrounding areas within the borough with fantastic parades of shops and small high streets; independent stores with their own loyal clientele and following.

But Richmond’s retail economy has flourished as a result of the enterprise and energy of generations of small, independent shopkeepers. Shopping parades across the borough have seen a diverse range of local shops providing more choice than one big supermarket. These local shops importantly have brought more to their neighbourhoods than value and quality. They also give our localities a sense of character and a sense of community.

According to the New Economics Foundation, over 30,000 independent shops closed down between 1995 and 2000. These lost shops include grocers, pubs and post offices. These shops are the glue which binds our communities together - and we are losing them fast particularly since the economic climate change last autumn.

London itself has lost more than 7,000 individual or family-owned shops in the past six years alone and in 2008, 27 small Public Houses a week in Britain were being closed down and lost, robbing communities of regular meeting places and social interaction.

Welcome

A campaign to protect our local shopping areas