Christine Swift is shutting her antiques centre in Richmond town centre with a heavy heart but insists she has no choice. “I’ve not taken any money since last Christmas,” she said.
“We’ve been £10,000 a month down. I thought, ‘OK, it might just be a blip’ but things haven’t improved. Nobody is buying.”
Swift’s business is one of four in the town to announce closure in the past week. It is the sort of thing happening across the UK but this is Richmond, a place popular with tourists where small independent businesses have thrived. It is also the North Yorkshire constituency of Rishi Sunak, where the prime minister has a home, albeit a far from ordinary home given its swimming pool, gym and tennis courts.
In Richmond beleaguered shop owners talk of the cost of living crisis, energy bills, interest rates and Brexit all coming together to cause a perfect storm of hardship.
This week Swift announced she would be closing York House antiques at Christmas. The Fleece Hotel, Cross View Tearooms and Ravensworth Nurseries, which has traded for 57 years, said they were closing with immediate effect.
“Richmond is reeling with shock,” said Paul Harrison, chair of the Original Richmond Business and Tourism Association. “In one week four significant businesses have announced closure, two of which have been very long established. It is a very bleak situation.
“The thing with a small independent business is the emotional investment … you invest your life in it. I feel ever so sorry for the businesses which are closing.”
Richmond is a Conservative stronghold, and when the Guardian visited on a wet Monday afternoon few people wanted to blame everything on their MP. But Harrison said: “I think the environment that has been created for businesses now is the most difficult I’ve ever known.
“It is the combination of all these different things and, yes, Brexit is part of the formula. People don’t want to talk about Brexit and I don’t understand why. Even the most straightforward thing like the exchange rate – anything that has been imported, including food, has been impacted by Brexit.
“There are things that the government did have control over but they have chosen the path they have taken. You also have to question why our energy cost rises were so much higher than other countries’.”
At York House, Swift says her energy bill went up from £700 a month to £2,500. When she talks about no money coming in she means literally nothing is going to her, it is all outgoings.
“There are plenty of families who come to Richmond for a nice day out but they aren’t spending,” she says. “They can’t afford to spend any money. They walk round the nice shops and then buy an ice-cream.”
Round the corner at Berber Leather, the owner, Beki Stevenson, said times were hard with no sign of them getting easier. “Everybody is struggling,” she says. “Everybody. Whether you’re a small business or Joe Bloggs on the street. Everybody’s costs have gone up and everyone is managing their budgets so much more carefully.
“There is a lot less what you might call frivolous spending, the spending where people come in and go, ‘Oh that’s really nice, I’m going to treat myself’. The spending I see is a lot more considered. People go away and think about it.”
Everything is going up, Stevenson said, from energy and broadband to the “incredible” cost of cardboard boxes which she needs for the online side of her business.
She is working longer hours for less money and is not sure when things will get better.
“We are not selling an essential product,” she said of the Moroccan leather handbags on sale. “We’re not food. This is where people cut back first and we’re seeing the same thing with small businesses across the country.”
On Facebook, the owners of the Fleece said they were closing because of “unrelenting chronic staffing issues and ever-increasing costs”.
Times are also tough at King Street Kitchen and gift shop where the owner, Alyson Swift, said the current situation was “frightening” but she was trying to be optimistic.
“I’m thinking if less people can afford foreign holidays it could be good for Richmond because we are a beautiful market town. I’m hoping people might start coming back.”
Swift has not entirely given up hope things will take a turn for the better.
“Let’s see if Dishy Rishi can do something,” she said. “He has never been in this shop which … you know. Without blowing my own trumpet, this is one of the nicest shops in town and he’s never been in. He should have been in, shouldn’t he?”
