A village shop is to close next month as the business owners contend with a 20 per cent drop in sales.

Kate and Simon Richards, owners of The Shop in Cilcain, near Mold, confirmed that the village store will shut on Sunday, February 11, after two-and-a-half years in business.

The building will continue as a café at the weekends to “provide a service to the local community and for visitors who come to experience our beautiful village and the surrounding hills”.

The Hut, opened by Mr and Mrs Richards, on Moel Famau will continue as usual with plans to expand.

Posting on The Shop’s Facebook page, the pair confirmed the decision to close next month.

They wrote: “Over the past two-and-a-half years we have taken our role in the village very seriously and have taken a lot of pride in our work.

“As a local business, we see ourselves as a focal point for the community, a provider of high
quality, locally-sourced produce and an employer of local people.

“We provide a total of eight part-time positions to local people, all of whom are paid the National Minimum wage (and the National Living Wage where appropriate).

“Given the scale of our village, the shop is a difficult business to make financially viable and that is why we have continually developed a wide range of initiatives to try to increase sales and therefore increase its long-term viability.”

The pair said they had seen “a positive growth in visitors from further afield coming to the café and we have some really wonderful customers in the village”.

Despite this, a significant drop in support from the community had been recorded and in the past 12 months alone, sales have dropped by more than 20 per cent.

They said: “This has had a major impact on the business which now runs at a loss.

“Given the already difficult climate in which we were operating and with this recent downward trend in sales, it is with great sadness that we have taken the extremely hard and disappointing decision to close.”

Mr and Mrs Richards paid tribute to those who helped support their business since it opened in 2015.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank the fantastic customers who have supported us over the past couple of years,” they said.

“You have understood the importance of local produce and of shopping locally.

“We will be very sorry not to be able to serve you in the future and very sad to have failed you and our staff in fulfilling our dream of a modern, high quality and successful shop for Cilcain.”