I was pleased to read your article about Northcote Road traders.
My name is Ruby Cook and I am the owner of Verde, formerly of 75 Northcote Road.
I had been trading for 16 years at this address and was the first person to sell and manufacture natural/organic skincare, bath and baby care.
advertisement
When I took over the shop in 1990 my rent was £10,000. By 2007 it had increased to £70,000.
Naturally, being a small independent business I could not possibly meet this rent.
This meant I had to make several local people redundant and this was an extremely stressful time especially as being a widowed single mother my business is my only source of income.
In order to try and survive I took a market stall and continued to trade from there.
Fortunately in September 2007 I was offered a small shop further along Northcote Road, at 113a, by a customer at a reasonable rent.
My story has a happy ending but the story of Northcote Road is not happy and all my customers, without exception, do not want a change from small independent shops to multinationals which have been forced on us.
Many of us delight in the independent shops in Europe while we become cloned and lose the character, charm and community spirit that we once held dear.
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
Print
Email this
Comment
