Shopping week a success

THE organisers of the first Lerwick town centre shopping week say they are “very pleasantly surprised” by its success.

Living Lerwick held the wide-ranging event between 11-17 July, with live music, meet the maker demonstrations and promotions drawing folk to the street.

Reflecting on the impact of the initiative, BID manager Christena Irvine said the organisers had used Orkney’s popular Stromness shopping week as inspiration.

She added that before starting her role at town centre development company Living Lerwick, she didn’t realise quite how busy Commercial Street can be.

“The idea behind having a shopping week was to give people extra reasons to come and have a look and to give the businesses an opportunity to showcase what they do,” she said.

“A lot of the businesses took part and in some cases in very imaginative ways. This, coupled with the extra activities organised by Living Lerwick drew extra people into the town, especially on the brighter days.

“It would be great to have a Lerwick shopping week as successful as the one in Stromness. Since Stromness are in their 67th year, we have a fair bit of catching up to do but we plan to improve it year on year.

“It is bound to take a few years for this event to fulfil its potential but we were very pleasantly surprised with the great ideas and level of enthusiasm from the businesses.”