FOND farewells are being paid to two long-serving high street retailers - both of whom have launched closing down sales prior to taking retirement.

Clayton Fine Jewellery may have been a fixture since 2004, but its owner Keith Clayton has been in the trade for 50 years. He started after leaving school aged 16, and worked at a Farnham jewellers for 32 years before opening his own business in Haslemere.

The shop has been on the market for a few months, but so far there have been no takers – sadly a sign of the changing fortunes of high street retailers across the country.

Mr Clayton, who will continue to serve the town in his role as Haslemere district scouts commissioner, said: “I would like to thank all my customers. I have had great comments from them, all saying how sad it is for Haslemere. In an ideal world, someone would take over the business and I could work for it for a few days a week. There is certainly business here to be done.

“We have a huge catchment area – people come to us from Petworth, Bordon, Midhurst and Camberley for the service aspect that other jewellery shops can’t deal with, as we have the skills and knowledge.

“We are busy but overall Haslemere doesn’t have sufficient shops to secure suficient footfall. It does well compared with other towns but it’s not doing enough to draw in more customers. It doesn’t have enough car parks and the ones it has are not priced to induce people to shop. The high street car park is cloged up with Waitrose customers.”

A few doors down, Classic Cookware owners Anne and Michael Joyce are also retiring and closing the business they opened – originally in Lower Street – 26 years ago.They moved to their high street premises in a boom period in 2004 – the same year that Claytons opened.

Mr Joyce said: “It was a big leap of faith, we thought we might have to sell our house. But it went well from the start. We would like to give a lot of thanks to our loyal customers, who have come in on a regular basis. They are all saying they will miss us. It was originally Anne and her mother Sylvia, who retired some years ago, running the shop and I did the finances.

“It’s only in the last couple of years that things have taken a downturn. The business rates aren’t a problem – it’s the number of people coming through the door.”

Haslemere Chamber of Commerce president Craig McGowan said: “It is clear that life on the high street is difficult these days. Times are hard but there are still reasons to be optimistic. Haslemere has the lowest unoccupancy rate of all the towns in Waverley and still possesses a rich mix of owner managed shops and cafes.

“Where some businesses are closing down other people see opportunity, with new wine bars opening recently, backed up by the likes of Cote coming to town.”