Can small businesses survive apathy

It's a worrying time for many small businesses in Whitehaven. Months and months of bad press about the difficulty of parking coupled with recent high profile road closures have brought our business and others to their knees but even in the new world of facebook and twitter, how do you persuade people who 6 months ago were regular shoppers in the town to return? It gets harder and harder as more shops close and last week we lost the Jeweller Strange Fruits but sometimes the chicken has to come before the egg and unless the shoppers return, Whitehaven as with so many other towns will lose its identity as a shopping town and a destination town and with it we will lose so much more. You don't visit the town unless you really want to as is often the case with coastal towns so we cant rely on passing trade, we the locals have to be the backbone of the trade.

Sadly theres a small percentage of loud mothed people who hog social media to deride anything new or any attempt to do anything new in the town and if social media had a bullshit button so many of these pratts would be cut off without a voice. My view is that if you haven't anything good to say in response to initiatives then don't say it, but sadly politeness is also a dying art. In a period where our own shop is breaking records month on month for low turnover, I decided the town itself needed an event next year, this one being the first for 19 years when we haven't had a major event and what do we get? Questions about how much of the crowdfunding will go to me,,, nothing is the short answer, complaints that the event isn't on the harbour without even asking why and the usual others who say things like 'its just him trying to get free publicity for his shop again'

Urgggh, there are so many times this last week when Ive crossed the stress threshold and I wonder why I do it to myself. If I had opened my fine wine shop in Keswick or even Cockermouth and not done anything event wise, just concentrated on the business, I'm pretty sure Id be driving a swanky Jaguar by now but here I am 21 years later and I have an MBE and the thanks of the quiet crowd in West Cumbria to show for my efforts. Don't get me wrong, the MBE is lovely and the folk who pop in to say thank you are equally lifting but they don't buy stock or pay the shop rent. So here is my plea!

Whatever the reason for you staying away over the last 6 months, please come back and do so to quiet applause and gracious thanks from many shopkeepers and while your at it bring your work colleagues, family and friends and re discover the town because it really would be ridiculous for me to be running a major retail event in 2017 while not even owning a shop!

Thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing you all between now and Christmas.

Gerard Richardson MBE