Citizens must shop locally now more than ever as small businesses struggle to survive, having spent nearly a year struggling to trade.
While the death of the local shops and the high street may have been coming long before Covid-19 ever existed, the choice is now more critical today, as convenience and supply overrule familiarity and good customer services.
This pandemic actually provided a boost for both people and local retailers, with restrictions and worry encouraging people to shop closer as they lacked the ability to go to work, meaning that as these villages and towns worked tirelessly to keep themselves afloat they also put themselves back into the consciousness of the residents.
However, this has to continue and even grow as we move back into a more familiar normality versus the past year in order to keep this survival of local business going.
A key part of this is the need to raise the local Brighton economy, as apparently £10 at a retailer becomes £50 into that economy as they put that money into hiring local people and patronising other local businesses themselves.
This only elevates as a continuous cycle creates much larger gaps in the market, which allows whole new retailers to open and provide more local services that then makes local shopping even more convenient and appealing to other people in the area.
These factors don’t even consider the non-essential businesses who were not able to open, whose need for support will be near desperate as they seek to reopen and survive at a time when many have had to close, and others will need a real boost in turnout to keep going.
Brighton is a city that works off of a huge tourism and visitor influx, so without this these businesses will be one of the most heavily affected industries across the entire country.
The council has stepped in to provide £63 million in small business support to 4600 companies, however going forward they will not get this level of support again and some will have missed out completely if not meeting the required guidelines.
Such provision is a key factor in what makes Brighton so important and special, and the local residents need to support so that they can help the city recover as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Photo Credit: Gene Gallin
