' Six month road works have killed trade' says Allisons Pantry in Dartford boss

KentOnline / KMTV

A café in Dartford town centre says it's been forced to shut up shop for good following a long-running roadworks programme which has starved it of customers.

Transcript

00:00We've got roadworks basically non-outside the shop, that's removed 85% of my trade.

00:07I've lost all my morning trade and most of my lunchtime trade,

00:10and it's no longer able to sustain that up for any time to keep paying the bills.

00:18Customers just can't get here anymore.

00:20The roadworks are on now till the end of March, and that's only phase two,

00:25and there's another two more phases with no timescales given.

00:28If customers are coming by car, they have to wait in the long queues

00:33and then have to do a detour to get in and out,

00:36and it's just taking them forever so that they don't have time,

00:39especially if they've gone to breakfast break or lunch break.

00:42People walking, if they're coming further around from Dartford,

00:46they're instructed basically not to come past the shop.

00:51And if they do decide to come to the shop, there's a long route again for them to walk around,

00:56and it's just cutting down on their time when your shop is open basically for breakfast and lunches,

01:01and usually that's a limited time.

01:03The shop doesn't take a massive amount of money, but I'm looking at probably about £800 a week.

01:12The shop doesn't make a massive amount of money.

01:14It's never been a big earner. It's not been about earning money,

01:18but when it can't cover its costs when it used to be able to,

01:24and when the road work started, there was that instant drop.

01:27It's a very difficult decision.

01:29It's still in the early stages of the business. It's only been running two and a half years,

01:34so now should be the time I'm starting to claw back a bit of the investment,

01:39and that's just not happening. It's going the other way, and it's going fast the other way,

01:44and that's what's made the decision because of the lack of trade.

01:49And it has other effects, i.e. mental health, things like that.

01:53You're struggling to pay your bills because of the effects of the road works,

01:59so you have to make these decisions sometimes you don't want to make.

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