A PLASTIC free shop may have to close after struggling to get any customers despite being open throughout the lockdown.

Owner Leigh Holmes only opened two weeks before the first lockdown in March, but the health food shop has found it difficult to get customers in when the Rawtenstall high street is so quiet.

Planet B sells food, bathroom toiletries, as well as home and kitchen use items.

But Mrs Holmes has been forced to close the shop for walk-ins as not enough people were coming in although, online deliveries can still be made.

She said: “When we opened back up after the first lockdown, it was really quiet because people just weren’t coming out.

“In the second lockdown, we allowed only one customer in and still had regulars coming in, but many people just did not know we were here.

“This time round, it’s January so I knew we’d be a little quiet and in the first week we had like three customers, so I know I cannot stay open if it carried on.”

Mrs Holmes made the decision to close the shop but remains online for now.

She said: “It’s been quite stressful and mentally exhausting, and I think this is the same for many shops on the high street.

“I would have preferred if we had just stayed in lockdown longer the first time, but we keep going back in and out like a cycle.

“It’s quite disheartening to see hardly anybody open and minimal people walking around.”

Mrs Holmes is due to sign a three-year lease on the shop in February but is now unsure if she will continue.

She said: “If we cannot change it to a one-year lease and it carries on like this, then I just can’t see a three-year lease working.

“I had to close the shop, because hardly anybody was coming in and don’t know what else I can do to let people know that I was still here.

“I used to get walk-ins when people could still go shopping but time people aren’t venturing out unless they have to.”

It costs the shop owner more to stay open than to close and businesses have to be closed to even get help with the grant.

Mrs Holmes said: “But, even if I do have to close the shop, I will not be gone forever, I will look into opening up somewhere else.”

To order online go to https://thisisplanetb.com/