THE owner of a Radcliffe shop has announced he will have to close his store before the end of the year.

Greg's Discount Food, in Blackburn Street, will stop trading on Christmas Eve.

Owner Greg Shaw said the store has suffered 'a dramatic drop in footfall' over the past year.

He thanked his loyal customers and hardworking staff' for their support and said 'it was with a heavy heart' that he announced the closure — a decision 'not taken lightly'.

The 47-year-old said: "The shop's footfall has dropped dramatically over the past two to three years, from about 600 customers a day to 350. We cannot sustain that. The decision has made itself.

“Some of it was down to the closure of Barclays. We have also had a Lidl open in the town centre.

"Unfortunately it is becoming very very difficult for the independent trader to exist. People are going to Bury because there is more choice.

"I’m very sad that I’m having to close because I have a great relationship with a lot of my loyal customers. There are a lot of people who are unhappy about us closing.”

He added: “I cannot say who will be affected yet but as a business, we will have to lose some members of staff.

"That there will be redundancies upsets me greatly. The one thing I have got here is good staff.”

The shop owner, who lives in Springhead, opened his first shop in Oldham in 1996, and has been in retail ever since.

Mr Shaw opened Greg's Discount Food in Radcliffe town centre in 2003, expanding to comprise a freezer department five years later.

He said: "The Radcliffe store was very very successful. The people of Radcliffe showed me a lot of loyalty.

"We had stock coming in from as far away as London and Glasgow.

"If you visited my shop two years ago, there would have been a huge queue around the shop between about 11am and 3pm every day. Now we are lucky if we have a queue of three people."

The shop prided itself on providing quality clearance stock and deals which customers 'cannot get anywhere else', as well as quality hanging baskets and bedding flowers.

Mr Shaw recalled selling a hand-painted bottle of Perrier-Jouët champagne worth £100 for a bargain £69.99, as well as more than 18,000 sausage rolls in just over one year.

There are currently five other members of staff who work at the store, namely Mr Shaw's partner of 26 years Lisa Cookson, who is company secretary, shop manager Tony Mellor, till assistant Tracy Clarke, and shopfloor workers Ryan Fouracre and Lee Simms.

Mr Shaw said: "I'm so thankful to them for the work they have done over the years."

Following the closure of Greg's, Mr Shaw will continue to run his second shop in Middleton.