Two local shops close weekly

Two convenience stores a week are closing down — 400 over the last two years — as shop owners struggle to cope with tightening bank credit and high rents and rates, the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association has claimed.

And 4,200 outlets still in business are battling to avoid joining those closing down as average trading has fallen by 15%, the association’s chief executive, Vincent Jennings, said at the CSNA annual general meeting in Dublin yesterday.

Mr Jennings said retailers in Kerry and Wexford had been hardest hit, but he stressed the closures were impacting rural and urban areas equally.