A LONG running electronics store has closed its doors after an “unsustainable” five years of disruption.

Ringwood Sound & Vision has existed as an electronics store in some form on the High Street for more than 30 years and had been one of the longest surviving shops in the area.

However, a rise in trading and rent costs coinciding with fallout from Brexit and the Covid pandemic has meant the business has closed its store – while remaining open online and by appointment at a nearby warehouse unit.

Business owner Steve Kelly has run Ringwood Sound & Vision for 15 years and says he worries for other businesses in the town, describing the past few years as “like nothing we’ve ever seen before”.

He told the Echo: “It’s a collection of circumstances that has got us to this point, but really the last five years have been awful. We had two years of Brexit where everything was uncertain, the government couldn’t make up their mind, it was on the news everyday and it just affected trade.

“Then the two years of Covid really didn’t help. We had nine months of compulsory closure but like a lot of others I tried to keep trading any way I could. In the first lockdown I did some business where I followed all the rules, in the second lockdown this dropped substantially, then by the third lockdown I wasn’t getting any calls.

Bournemouth Echo: Old Granada store in Ringwood High Street. Picture: NFDCOld Granada store in Ringwood High Street. Picture: NFDC

“Government grants and help only went so far. You could ask your landlord to defer payments and that’s all very well, but the key word is defer. Those costs weren’t going anywhere, they were just being pushed down the road.

“The long and short of it is that as your takings gradually deteriorate and your running costs stay the same, the business is just unsustainable. It’s a real pity.”

Despite the High Street store being closed, Steve says he is determined to continue the business by running it from home and from a warehouse unit at Enterprise Park in Parsonage Barn Lane.

Visit ringwoodsoundandvision.co.uk for more information.

Prior to being called Ringwood Sound & Vision, the electronic goods store on 58 High Street has also been known as Visionhire and Granada. It was also used as a florists at one time.