IN the countdown to Christmas, the streets of Wellington are busy with shoppers for the festive season, but only a fraction of them are relying on the town’s independent retailers.

Our random survey of 40 shoppers revealed fewer than a quarter saying they relied preferred a local chain such as Waitrose or Asda to independent traders.

Just 23% said they relied solely on independent retailers around the town and 20% said they only shop online.

There are a number of small businesses throughout Wellington, but owner of No Shelf Control, Aiden Reynolds says they’re a “dying breed”.

They said: “I guess for me personally, independent local shopping is just so natural and it's so important because it's what makes a community thrive.

“If you haven't got good proper shops that people want to go in, and people want to support, then you haven't got a community. And I guess we're in this stage now where we really are a seriously dying breed.”

They added: “I think we'd expected business to pick up again in time for Christmas, but it hasn't. We're almost halfway through the month now, and it really hasn't.”

Charlotte Beatty, co-owner of High Street shop Nook and Cranny, said: “We've always found that generally people kind of moan if the high street's empty or if there aren’t the right shops, but they then don't support the local businesses.

“Obviously for us, we're only here because people are shopping with us, but we can't survive, we can't pay the rent or the rates or the electric bills, without customers. And essentially if they want a high street that's full of shops, then they need to support us.”

“It’s not as busy [this year] as we’d hoped it would be, and we kind of need this Christmas boost to get us through the quieter months.”

Overall, 80% of Wellington shoppers said they bought their Christmas gifts locally, at either independent or chain retailers.

One individual, Chris, said he wanted to avoid unnecessary pollution by sourcing all his gifts locally.

Another anonymous resident said they liked having the personal touch of buying products face-to-face, and that they couldn’t find what they’d wanted in nearby Taunton.

One participant had even travelled into Wellington from Taunton to do their Christmas shopping.

Some residents, however, expressed less hope for their town.

A participant, who wishes to remain anonymous, has recently chosen to move away.

They said: “Wellington is not going forward and desperately needs to update itself.”

“I’m leaving and I’m glad to be leaving because it’s going downhill.”

Resident Scott Williams said he felt fortunate to live in Wellington but that it was a shame there weren’t greater efforts to attract more business to the town.

Scott said: “We could do a lot more in Wellington so that people don’t have to travel out.

“You do have almost everything you could possibly want here but we could have more. Things are slowly improving.”