Minister praises Rotherham for Portas pilot plan

Local Growth Minister Mark Prisk visited Rotherham after it was given a £100,000 grant to help its shopkeepers in the wake of a visit by “retail guru” Mary Portas.

Rotherham was one of 26 towns across the country to be selected for the grant which to be spent on encouraging businesses to expand and give people a reason to “shop local”.

Mr Prisk visited Rotherham’s new Temperance Bar at the newly expanded Whistle Stop Sweet Shop, which was featured in the Yorkshire Post earlier this year.

The bar, selling sarsaparilla and cordials along with other fruit- and sweet-based drinks, is the only one of its kind in Yorkshire, and has been supported by a council grant.

Mr Prisk also met the team behind the town centre’s latest 
pop-up shop, “Vintage Dolls”, who will be offering vintage 
clothing and furniture from a unit within the historic Imperial Buildings.

He said he had “thoroughly enjoyed” his visit to Rotherham town centre.

Mr Prisk added: “I was incredibly impressed with the plans for reinventing the town centre and the work being done to help new and existing businesses.

“The changes being made are really encouraging, demonstrating how a town centre can reinvent itself with strong local support.

“I look forward to following the town’s progress in becoming a retail destination that the local community want to come to.”

He said he wanted to give his best wishes to the owners of Vintage Dolls and the Whistle Stop Sweet Shop, and said he was “certain that their enthusiasm, supported by the work the council is doing with both new and existing businesses, will lead to successful starts” for their ventures.

Coun Roger Stone, Rotherham Council’s leader, said: “Rotherham has been a beacon of business growth for the past few years, something that Mary Portas herself noted when she visited us in 2011.

“We’ve been using the money from the Portas Pilot grant to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit of our residents.”