A TRADER is closing a much-loved Colchester shop because she claims small businesses in the town have been “cut adrift” by the closure of the town’s old bus station.

Donna Savill, who opened Roo’s Baby Shop in Short Wyre Street, Colchester, in April 2012, plans to close in March to focus on her Chelmsford branch, which she says is doing much better.

Mrs Savill, 44, from Ridgewell, said trade at the Colchester shop had been badly hit since the bus station moved from Queen Street to Osborne Street.

She explained: “People used to pop in all the time when they got off the bus, but there’s nothing there now.

“This side of town just feels as if we have been cut adrift.

“It has never picked up. Our takings were 40 per cent down over Christmas.

“I’m so sad, because I learned the business here in Colchester and made so many friends, who are like family to me. There are children who used to come in as babies and are now going to school. You really grow up with them and their families.

“Now people just aren’t coming in.”

A Government scheme has exempted Mrs Savill from business rates on her Colchester shop for the past year, but she says even with that help, she can’t break even.

Several other shops have closed in Short Wyre Street since the bus station was moved including specialist clothing shop, the Era Store.

Traders are hoping things will pick up when the nearby former Keddies site, in Queen Street, re-opens as an independent cinema.

However, Mrs Savill thinks it will not make enough of a difference for her to stay.

She said: “That’s going to be mainly a night time thing, unfortunately.

“We expanded in Chelmsford in May and it showed our potential. We’re not in the town centre, but it is so busy.

“I know we are going to miss Colchester. March is going to be hard when we have to leave, but it’s the right decision.”