It's national small business day today, and people are being urged when buying their Christmas presents and ordering their food to consider their local businesses.
So, when you've been to the Bearwood Handmade craft festival at the Baptist Church Hall in Rawlings Road, why not take a look to see what some of the other local shops have to offer. There's more to Bearwood than fast food and charity shops.
The Bearwood Blog 
The precious survivors of Blunts and Dave Patricks don’t look happy with the empty and grim array of empty properties on the southern High St. The predatory parking wardens add to the gloom.
We wouldn’t expect them to look happy about empty shops, would we? As for parking wardens, because they enforce waiting restrictions it prevents people parking for hours on end, and keeps traffic moving, and therefore more customers. I don’t suppose you have recently had a parking ticket have you?
Bob – Been a Bearwood resident for 40 years now – – Never seen it look so tatty !!! The top end of Bearwood ( by Boots ) is a disgrace of empty shops and constant traffic jams and ”wardens”’ winson green prison is more inviting !!!!
I’ll go through it again. The shops you are talking about are owned by a London based property company which has gone bust. They have a large portfolio of shops in various parts of the country which are now in receivership. If that was a single unit, or a couple, that wouldn’t be a problem, but for a large strip of shops it becomes difficult to dispose of them to another developer when people are shopping online and the whole future of High St shopping is under threat. I think I have already explained that Wardens keep the traffic turning round by enforcing the parking restrictions, and actually they don’t tend to issue tickets to anyone who parks properly.
I see Chamberlains local family run Fish&Chip shop has now become a Harry Ramsdens
Sadly my comment was deleted from your Facebook page for some odd reason. I wanted to question the inclusion of Nisa – a supermarket chain – being included in a blog about shopping locally. To me local shopping should be about locally-sourced produce which is also ethically produced. Neither of which fit this chain. I’m a local resident and would love it if there were more genuinely local shops. I’d be interested in your response. Thanks. Jane
Well I haven’t got a Facebook page other than a personal page, and this wasn’t mentioned on there, so I certainly haven’t deleted anything.
I agree to an extent, but other local shops, including Nisa, co-op, T C Hayes, employ local people from Bearwood, who receive wages which pay their rent or mortgage and spend their money in our community. Nisa are also very big supporters of local charities such as Warley Woods and BUDS.
I hear the abbey pub is closing down end of february,i thought it was a listed building not that it means anything in this day and age
It is…and it is! I have asked the planning department to intervene with the new owners to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities.