Nisa supermarket Woodhouse: Residents concerns as supermarket closes in village centre

Residents say the Nisa store on Market Street, Woodhouse, has been closed for a week, and is the latest big store to close on the same parade of shops.

Residents say the former manager of the store has placed posts on social media confirming that the shop had closed, and there had been no sign of it opening in the last week.

Nisa is a chain of independent stores and staff on the firm’s inquiry line said it was not registered as closed on its system. But there was no sign of activity at the site today when The Star visited the site. The shutters were down and shoppers in the area said that had been the case for several days now.

Other shops confirmed the shop was thought to have closed, and shoppers said they had not seen it open for a week.

A member of staff in the butchers shop F and C Willey, said there had been a supermarket of some sort in that building since the 1980s and hoped it would re-open in some form.

However, shoppers on Market Street said they were concerned about the number of shops that had closed on the parade recently.

One shopper told The Star Nisa was the latest to go, and that the Fulton’s Foods shop just a few yards away, had closed last year, with the building still empty. She added there was still a Co-op for people to do food shopping within the village, as well as other stores and services.

She said: “The village has suffered from shops closing.”

Resident Anna Grant was waiting for a bus, discussing the latest closure with friends. She said: “No one had said anything about it closing – it was closed for a couple of days; now it’s been closed for a couple of weeks. Fultons has closed, and there was a pizza shop which has closed. We still have a butchers though. There used to be a cobblers, a drapers – you used to have everything in Woodhouse, but so much has closed.”

Resident Joan Hall agreed. She said: “I’ve been here 29 years, and I’d love to have some of the shops back. I’d love to have Fultons back.”

But both said they were pleased to see a new fruit shop had opened in the village late last year.

Lorrelle Lacey, who runs Cross Street Groceries with her friend Chelsea, said they were keen to see Woodhouse village successful and they had opened up the shop hoping that it worked.

They took over the shop in November, and Lorrelle said they had seen a busy trading period before Christmas. She said it had been a joint decision by both of them to try out running the shop.

She urged people to use their local shops. “It’s only a small village. We need people to use their local shops for them to keep going.”