Shoppers urged to help Alness bag £10k prize
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A CALL to arms has gone out to bargain hunters to make tomorrow your shopping day in Alness – because judges picking a winner for an illustrious award are coming to town.
Alness has launched a bid to be crowned best High Street in Britain and the competition’s judges are expected to have a good snoop around tomorrow.
Carolyn Wilson, who runs a shop on the High Street and is also a local councillor, believes the town has a strong chance of scooping the £10,000 cash prize.
She said: "People need to come out in their droves and support us by coming to shop. We are having offers in some of the shops. We are obviously wanting the High Street to be busy but the sales offers are also a way of saying thank you to all our loyal customers."
The town has been hailed as a "beacon of hope" for launching the bid. Local MP Jamie Stone said Alness was this year’s obvious winner.
Shoppers can buy everything from a wedding dress to shoes, flowers, medicine, baking and meat. It has hairdressers, pubs, a newsagent and an ironmonger, as well as a motor parts business and a clothes shop.
It’s seen as an achievement for a community assessed by the Scottish Government as among those suffering the most financial hardship. Mrs Wilson said it took a lot of commitment from traders and volunteers and believes the lack of big brand chain stores is key to the town’s success. More than 90 per cent of the shops are independent.
She said: "We started this whole High Street initiative in 1994 to look at the dying High Street. At that point we had 12 empty shops, the smelter had shut down and there was high unemployment. Alness was seen as somewhere that was not attractive. It was not the place to be going shopping. It was shut on a Saturday afternoon because it was so dead.
"But because we have worked so hard on the flowers and on keeping the environment clean we’ve managed to get this far."
