We have a wealth of fantastic small shops here in Staffordshire Moorlands and I am calling on small shopkeepers to enter the Best Small Shops Competition, celebrating the creativity of small shops and the central role they play in our local community.
The Best Small Shops Competition is open to any small shop operating in the UK. For the purposes of the competition, a small shop is defined as a non-corporate business selling goods or services to the public for use or consumption rather than for resale, from a business rated premises in the UK.
The competition is free to enter and all shops who enter will also be promoted to consumers through an online Indie Retail Directory.
Shopkeepers can nominate their businesses until Sunday 9th September via www.bestsmallshops.co.uk. A shortlist of 25 of the most impressive applications will be shortlisted by a panel made up of established representatives from the independent retail industry.
The judges will be looking for evidence of a small shops’ entrepreneurial spirit, ways that they have been innovative in their business and what they have done to have a lasting positive impact on their community.
The shortlisted small shops will be invited to a Parliamentary Reception on the 13th November 2018 to find out who will be crowned the Best Small Shop for 2018.
I would also like to remind local residents to send in your nominations for the Parliamentary Pub of the Year competition. Nominations should be sent to me at karen.bradley.mp@parliament.uk with the Name and Address of the Pub and a brief description of ‘What the Pub is great at.’
I think that Staffordshire Moorlands can do really well in both the Small Shops competition and the Parliamentary Pub of the Year so the more people who nominate the better.