BBC South West<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n An independent bookshop has been providing a community and economic boost to one Cornish town, despite a national decline in the industry.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Bookshop\u00a0in\u00a0Helston, the southern-most bookshop on mainland Britain, opened in November 2023, giving the town a bookshop for the first time in 40 years. <\/p>\n The shop, run by Ginny Sealey, has been telling a story of continued resilience as the Booksellers Association (BA) revealed the number of independent bookshops has been on a downward trend over the last two years.<\/p>\n Ms Sealey, for whom owning a bookshop was a long-held dream, said Helston’s high street had had its ups and downs but was “on its way back up again now”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ms Sealey said: “We’re not a supermarket – you’re not coming every day to buy a book – so we work closely with the library.<\/p>\n “There’s a balance there for special treats, birthday presents.”<\/p>\n The latest membership numbers released by the BA showed the number of independent bookshops had fallen in 2024 from 1,063 to 1,052.<\/p>\n It said independent bookshops were, however, outperforming the wider retail sector , which saw about 37 shop closures per day in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Meryl Halls, managing director of the Booksellers Association said: “Bookshops provide local jobs, enrich local communities and fuel local economies; they bring social cohesion and cultural capital to their towns and villages; they bring authors to schools, readers to high streets, donations to charities and support to literacy programmes. <\/p>\n “They should be celebrated by us all but not to the point of complacency or at the cost of action.”<\/p>\n The BA said bookshops such as Helston’s were having to show resilience and innovation in the face of economic uncertainty.<\/p>\n A survey by the association revealed the top five concerns of independent bookshops for 2025 related to financial pressure via increasing overheads and softening consumer confidence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Melanie Young, who attends a book group at the Bookshop in Helston, said having it on the high street was “good for the economy”.<\/p>\n “You come to the bookshop, you maybe go down the road to the deli, you see a poster in the window for something that’s happening at the new little theatre space and everything starts to snowball,” she said.<\/p>\n Poetry group member Margaret Logan said Ms Sealey had “added something to the town” and ran lots of additional events for locals.<\/p>\n Gary Matthews, another poetry group member, added: “It’s something the town has needed for a long time and this has fulfilled every expectation of having an independent bookshop in town. <\/p>\n “I spend a lot of money in this bookshop, but I think it invites you to and I think that’s for the good of the book trade as well as for the readers.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"BBC](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/9f19\/live\/5d903860-4ac9-11f0-bf97-355d713cb260.jpg.webp\")
BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n‘Enrich local communities’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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