It was about this time of year, back in 2014, having launched a little bar and restaurant in Aberystwyth, before understanding how our weird town works, that I was anticipating my first festive season. For it was, and still is, taken for granted that UK hospitality and retail businesses can earn over 20 per cent of their annual revenue during the Christmas period. Imagine my horror discovering a significant number of local restaurateurs and hoteliers consider it economically shrewd to shut their doors for a less-than-jolly few weeks – that Christmas in Aber is nothing like the golden goose it is elsewhere.  

Aber’s students have largely gone home. Tourists are thin on the ground. So, while the majority of UK business owners say that this year a good Christmas offers an immediate lifeline for under-pressure finances – worthwhile staying open for now and crossing fingers for some miracle in the spring – bumper seasonal revenues are unlikely to be the saviour of Aberystwyth.  

Around here, grim months continue. With no prospect of overheads reducing, entering the season of unconventional regional scrooge, for some local traders now is the time to cease trading. Accordingly, the past months have seen the Cambrian News reporting on a stream of closures in the region’s independent hospitality and retail sector. Resignation abounds in current conversations, personal and penned, to the ongoing exodus of community enriching local enterprises. This Christmas will not only see doors shut for a few weeks, but more closed for good. It makes no sense, as one struggling proprietor told me, throwing good money after bad. 

These are the same businesses kept afloat during lockdown with expensive injections of valuable national capital. Grants, loan guarantees, furlough schemes buoyed a sector now floundering in a storm of relentless business rates, rents stuck at unrealistic pre-Covid levels, impoverishing energy costs (with no word of assistance beyond the spring), and dwindling footfall around increasingly scruffy and boarded-up town centres.  

What to do? I could point out that business rate relief for independent traders might slow the trend. Or badger landlords into encouraging a meaningful reoccupation of high streets with a sharp downward adjustment of rents. I could urge energy suppliers to cut prices. Press Putin to retreat from Ukraine... But even I cannot imagine such words making any difference at all. 

And anyway, without reversing the slide in customer spend, even if these national and international pressures are somehow miraculously alleviated, this will make little difference for the hospitality and retail trade in mid Wales. It will not be the council or Welsh government, landlords or Russians that will save the day for commercial Aberystwyth. Recovery can only be found with the increasing footfall of residents.  

During lockdown, living careless, carless, and up in the hills, habits developed resulting in Christmas and birthday gifts taken care of by Amazon, groceries delivered by Tesco and Asda. Internet shopping is often cheaper, wonderfully convenient, with no requirement to suffer the cold. Occasionally venturing out and about; warmer and quicker to pop into Morrisons, Starbucks, and Argos. 

Despite these temptations, this season I am re-engaging with Aber’s shopping streets to source supplies, gifts, and cards from the independent sector – where and while I can. Don’t get me wrong, there are essential products that cannot be adequately found locally. Quality rum is a perfect example (sampling several Welsh attempts, to be fair, the local variety is expensive for what it is, and pretty terrible. But I tried, and that is the principled point). 

Trading within Ceredigion, for me, will mean printing at Inkwells and Siop Ffoto, rather than Instantprint and Moonpig. Clothes from Rude Monkey, Clive’s, Vintage Vibes (when I dare), rather than M&S, Next and Matalan. Fast food from the Express, Spartacus, Mama Fay’s, rather than McDonald’s, Greggs, and Domino’s. Less produce from Co-op, Lidl and Spar. More supplies from Ultracomida, Mecca and Morgan’s. Fags from Lloyd’s. Less leaning on Amazon Prime. Increasingly frequent visits to Andy’s Records, Polly’s, Charlies and Mona Liza. Greeting cards from Driftwood Designs. You will have your list of beloved local merchants. So, best not take these institutions for granted anymore. Colour and characters we genuinely weep for, as and when they disappear.  

 Of course, big brands create jobs, pay wages, and in some cases offer franchise opportunities. But this is hollow consolation for the sacrifice of independent traders upon the altar of bland and beholden convenience. For we are fast embracing high streets homogenised by charity shops and chain-stores. Massive organisations that are, at best unremarkable, at worst unattractive. Indistinct stores doing nothing to distinguish Aberystwyth’s shopping and hospitality experience from any other. Neither encouraging visitors nor complementing the character of mid Wales. Prosaic conglomerates that any time may cut and run at the behest of some faraway accountant’s spreadsheet. The antithesis of our battling local traders. 

And when current business instinct is for opening hours to be reducing, not increasing, I fear a few extra hours on a few Fridays before Christmas will not be enough to give hope to struggling traders currently considering the future. Especially when extending hours induce additional overheads in staffing and energy costs. When you may already have noticed that many independent shops, bars, and restaurants are colder this winter. When for many proprietors, heating and remaining solvent are entirely incompatible. When the one way to embolden local entrepreneurs and artisans is to make trading viable throughout the year, an occasional flurry of festive footfall isn’t going to do it.  

Maintaining an independent business, right now, is to make a significant commitment to Aber. The least we can do is wear a vest, absolutely no grumbling about colder premises, and for the sake of ourselves, immediately redirect our prized shopping budgets, eating, and drinking habits back into our region’s independent high streets. Not for a few Friday evenings. Not just for this season, but into January and habitually.  

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