Bookshop closure will be another blow for Low Street
BANFF’S recession-hit Low Street is to lose a popular locally-run business when bookshop Chapter & Verse closes its doors for the last time on Saturday, April 27.
The news that Mrs Cathleen King, who has run Chapter & Verse for 14 years, is closing her business down comes hot on the heels of a report in the "Journal" last month that national retail chain DE Shoes is to close its outlet on Low Street after the company was put into administration.
A former teacher, Mrs King, who began trading from her Low Street premises in 1998, told the "Journal" that her business was a "victim of the explosion in online shopping".
"The Internet and the massive increase in people buying books online from the likes of Amazon and the rise in popularity of new developments like Kindle and ebooks is slowly strangling the life out of bookshops all over the country," she said.
"I have taken nothing out of the business for the last two years, actually putting money in to keep it afloat, and we looked at establishing our own website to see if that would help, but the bottom line is the fact that we cannot compete on price with massive online operations like Amazon.
"Chapter & Verse grew out of my love and my family’s love for books, and over the years my late husband, William, my daughter Denise and my grandson Daniel have all been involved in helping to run the business."
Currently offering 30% discounts on recommended retail prices across the board on her remaining stock, Mrs King believes local book lovers will miss having an outlet for locally-generated literature on their doorstep.
"The novelist Shona Maclean, who bases her books here and used to live in Banff, used to do book signings here before she moved from the area, and cultural, arts and heritage groups in and around Banff will lose an outlet for their material, which was always popular with locals and visitors alike."
While Mrs King is looking forward to giving some of her newly-free time to voluntary work, staff at Banff’s DE Shoes branch are still in the dark over when they will close their doors.
The premises, on the corner of Bridge Street, are currently up for sale, and business is carrying on as normal while staff wait to find out when they will lose their jobs.
Banff’s branch of DE Shoes is one of three under threat in Banffshire and Moray, with the outlets in Buckie and Keith also slated for closure unless a buyer is found for the 146-year-old Dundee-based company which boasted a high street presence in Scottish towns from Kirkwall to Alloa until it ran into difficulties late last year.
