Shoppers in a Nottinghamshire village say their high street is a 'secret shopping hotspot' and that business is booming.
Chip shops, coffee outlets, pubs and more make up the patchwork of independents in Radcliffe-on-Trent, home to 8,000 people.
Richard Seaman helped his wife, café owner, Mel Seaman open the Butler’s Coffee House, on Main Road. Mel also owns The Butler’s Coffee House in Bingham but opened up in Radcliffe in October.
Speaking about how business is going, Richard said: “It’s been really good, it was always the plan to bring speciality coffee here and we know the area well.” The Butler’s Coffee House's festive drinks are going down a treat which includes the chocolate orange hot chocolate for £4.
READ MORE: We visit Nottinghamshire high street where business is '50/50'
Richard continued: “Particularly with the cost of living, we’re a warm space and we have a lot of people that come in to work. It’s important for us to use local suppliers and we have homemade sausage rolls that do well too.”
On 6 Main Road is Pen2Paper. The card shop and stationary store is run by Susann Rudkin-Smith alongside her husband.
Susann enjoys managing the card shop which promotes community events, takes in dry cleaning and is a DPD collection point. She said: “It doesn’t feel like working.”
Susann spoke about how business has been for the past 2 years and said: “2020 to 2021 has skewed things with all the lockdowns. Christmas is usually the busiest time for us and we usually order Christmas cards in January.
“We monitor footfall on a spreadsheet and we’ve compared this year to previous years and there’s not that much difference, perhaps people have stopped spending due to the cost of living and of course, there’s the Royal Mail strikes which has resulted in people not sending Christmas cards.”
Susann continued and said: “West Bridgford is not that far and the way West Bridgford is structured, we don’t have that. Here, the shops are more broken up which could have an impact on people shopping in West Bridgford more.”
On the High Street, shoppers spoke about what they think retail in the area is like. Many try their best to shop locally.
Marie Granger, 44 lives in Radcliffe. She described the shopping scene in the village as a “secret spot.”
Marie who is a sales assistant said: “Radcliffe is like a secret spot for shopping because unless you live here, I don’t think many people from Nottingham are venturing out to the village. The Radcliffe Fish Bar is fantastic and so is the new coffee shop on the main street, there’s plenty of places to pop into.
“Inside some of the windows on the shops there’s little signs that say ‘shop local’ because business owners need the business. I always try my best to shop locally and in all fairness, I think we have pretty much everything here already, I know a lot of people would like to see a big market a few times a month.”
Jim Henry, 67 is now retired. Originally from Burton Joyce, Jim moved to Radcliffe 30 years ago. Jim said: “Tomkins of Radcliffe are great and I hope they’re busy this time of year. Now I’m retired, I like looking around all the shops, it gets me out and about and when I'm done walking about I can sit and have a drink in the Radcliffe Arms.
"I think we have a respectable amount of shops with accommodating business owners and you can’t say that about everywhere else.”
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