The Main Street Trading Company has won the Best Small Shop Award 2018 at the Best Small Shops competition (BSSC) parliamentary reception today. 

The Main Street Trading Company bookshop and café opened in June 2008. The shop’s mission has always been to champion reading and offer customers a wonderful shopping experience. In 2012, the independent retailer developed a barn behind the main shop to create the Deli & Home shop.

The BSSC celebrates the creativity of UK independent retailers and the key role that they play on the high street and in their local communities.

The competition was managed by the Independent Retailers Confederation, and was open to UK independent retailers and judged over 600 entrants based on their entrepreneurial skills, community values and customer service.

ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “We are proud to have been involved with the Best Small Shops competition to celebrate innovation from independent retailers, in running valued local shops and across the wider retail sector."

Hopes of Longtown, an award-winning independent village shop and Post Office, was highly commended at the event for their extensive range of services and their support of local producers through their #ShopLocal30 stickers.