Trader waiting for a chance to shine
WILL first-time trader Sam Baker get the chance to shine and open the small jewellers he’s put his all into or will lockdown and bad timing crush his dreams of helping his high street and community?
Sam intends to open his Samuel James store in Bournemouth, Dorset on June 15. But the burden weighing on him is far greater than he expected. Now he is hoping with all his heart it won’t be fatal.
Having a decade working his way up in retail, in January he finally seized his chance to fulfil his ambition and set about taking over the jewellery business where he’d worked and had a loyal clientele.
“I set up my company, all the legal points had been dealt with and a friend stood as guarantor on the lease for the landlord,” he says.
“The Covid crisis was emerging but I was committed by then. I signed up on March 11 for five years with a lease due to begin on March 25. Then lockdown changed everything and I never opened.”
With no sales but rent to pay Sam hoped a grant through the coronavirus Small Business Grant Fund would come to his rescue.
“But I missed out by days as I needed to be registered as the ratepayer on March 11 – and although I had signed then, I was not officially the ratepayer until March 25, the day after lockdown,” he explains.
Both Sam and Crusader asked his Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council if there was any flexibility, but rules meant there was none.
Jewellery new and pre-loved, repairs, remodelling, designs to order, valuations and art deco keepsakes are all part of Sam’s plan.
Although daunted, he is now going to apply for help under the Covid-19 Local Authority Discretionary Grants Fund as he was already registered as a trader on March 11.
“I love my work and I want my store to be the complete shopping experience you can only get faceto-face,” he told Crusader.
“But I will be facing debt and terrible pressure if there is no help. Falling through the cracks like this is devastating. Support now would make all the difference.”