A statement from the Directors October 2025
Over the last few years, the environment for retail in the city centre has become increasingly difficult. This is due to several factors including: –
- Increasing costs of doing business
- Falling footfall in the City centre
- A move to online shopping
- Increased home working
This means that despite turnover still being reasonably high it is not enough to cover the costs, meaning that Just Fair Trade has lost money over the last few years, despite extensive efforts on sales, fruitless searches for more affordable locations, and innovations to counter the decline including reducing our costs to a bare minimum. The situation is no longer sustainable.
This meant that the Directors had little choice but to activate the break clause in the lease this year before the situation left us with no room for manoeuvre. Even so our future choices are limited by finance, staffing and limited sales opportunities. Just Fair Trade will move out of Silver Street at the end of the year.
The intention is to make the most of our last Christmas season trading on Silver Street to give us the fullest range of options moving forward into the new year.