One of the few remaining shops on Callington’s high street is set to close after six years of trading with the owner blaming new parking charges for putting off shoppers.

Victoria Eyton, a party supplies shop on Fore Street, is to close its doors for the final time on September 30. 

Shop owner Tricia Stephenson says the new parking charges introduced by Cornwall Council in the New Road South Car Park and the removal of the first hour free parking has resulted in a reduced footfall of 40 per cent, forcing her to make the difficult decision to shut up shop. This also comes as it was announced last month that the high street is set to see its bank close its doors later in the year.  Tricia expressed “real sadness” to see the business she runs alongside her daughter come to the end of an era.

Business owner, Tricia explained that she came to the decision to close the store after there was a noticeable reduction in customers coming in to the shop since the parking charges were introduced.

“Footfall fell between 25-30 per cent in the first week of the parking charges being introduced,” said Tricia.

“It even happened before then as people had it in their mind once they knew about the charges.

“Now footfall is down by around 40 per cent.

“I didn’t think it was going to have such a big impact.”

The new changes at the New Road South car park came into force in May this year. To park for one hour now costs £1, removing the first hour of free parking.

For this local independent business owner, this £1 charge has forced her to make the reluctant decision to close. Tricia highlighted that customers had voiced to her that making the trip to buy items such as a birthday card from the shop coupled with an extra £1 charge to park deters them from coming in to the store with some saying that they would not longer be coming in once the new charges began.

For Tricia who opened the business six years ago this month, running it alongside her daughter Vicki, this has not been an easy decision to make.

“Myself and my daughter started this business from scratch,” said Tricia.

“I put tens of thousands of pounds into it and now this is all lost.

“My biggest concern was my daughter so that made the decision to close a whole lot harder.But I’m not prepared to watch it disintegrate.

“I feel anger, frustration and a real sadness as I feel I have let my daughter down. We got through covid and brexit, but we can’t get past the county council.”

This comes as Tricia explained that last year they were thinking about expanding the business as they were doing well, but couldn’t move due to lack of premises. Prior to the council introducing the new charges, a consultation was held to gather public opinion.

Tricia said that when the consultation was open, she constructed an objection comment to the proposal, voicing her concerns about the effect on local businesses and even contacted Connor Donnithorne, Cornwall Council’s cabinet portfolio holder for transport to explain the implications for Callington, but has had no response.

Tricia continued: “When people were saying that they were not going to be coming in anymore, I relayed this in my objection. I spent ages filling out the consultation, objecting to the proposal. I had to keep cutting down what I had written as there weren’t enough characters to write my response.

“I even contacted Cllr Donnithorne to say that the customers were down 40 per cent and I was going to have to close the shop. I just think the council have made their mind up and they’re not going to do anything about it.”

Looking to the future, Tricia said that her daughter hopes to continue the business online using Facebook and delivering locally, but for this independent business owner her livelihood has changed forever and she said she knows of other businesses that won’t be far behind.

Connor Donnithorne has been approached for a comment.