Established in 1964, this Leek gem has been run by Alan & Pauline for the last 11 years.

Open every day at 5am(!!!) and closing at 1pm –  you can be sure of a tasty, delicious oatcake as fresh as they come. And how fresh is fresh? Well, how about standing in the serving area and watching the oatcakes for the day being made in front of you – the magical (and secret) recipe mix is ladled on to the two hot plates, left a minute or so to cook and then flipped – bingo! hot fresh deee-licious oatcakes.

And then you’ve got the difficult decision of the filling and the lingo – a bit like coffee house talk – a double bacon with cheese and brown (notice no mention of oatcake) is two oatcakes together with bacon, melted cheese and HP sauce.  No prizes for guessing red is ketchup.  Note a double is different than asking for two separate oatcakes.  They do sandwiches as well – or ‘on bread’ as you may hear when they are ordered.

Cos they’re such a local delicacy nearly every visitor to Leek will be treated to an oatcake by their host.  And more often then not they’ll be seen with a dozen in their luggage on their trip back home – and this then creates another responsibility. If you are visiting your friends who have got the oatcake bug you can bet they’ll be asking you to bring a few up (or down) with you when you visit.  Blimey, sometimes you don’t realise just how lucky you are when you’ve got a hidden gem like Leek Oatcakes on your doorstep.

As well as being up at silly o’clock every day of the week (they open Sunday as well) Alan and Pauline supply a large number of Leek’s corner shops, butchers, pubs and cafés with fresh, made in Leek oatcakes – a really Totally Locally product and company.  Are you hungry yet?

Leek Oatcakes, 2 Heywood Street, Leek,  ST13 5JX
Tel: 01538 387556

This lovely little emporium is just bursting at the seams with delicious clothes and gifts for kids.  Suzanna’s as warm and welcoming as can be whether you’re just browsing or on a serious mission – and full of ideas if you’re struggling for inspiration.  Hard to imagine that you would be here though – from the moment you walk through the door you’re surrounded by fab things to brighten the life of you and your little ones…or indeed any little one!  In fact, even just a visit is guaranteed to do that.

Pop in and see Suzanna and explore her gorgeous, covetable, loveable, huggable (toys), wearable (clothes) and just generally beautiful things.  Go on, why wouldn’t you?

7 Stanley Street, Leek, ST13 5HG

Tel 01538 383452

email sales@bo-belles.co.uk

Chorley Mill, 1 West Street, Leek, ST13 7AF.

http://www.pandjantiques.co.uk/

Mon – Fri 9am – 5pm.  Weekends by appointment. Tel : 01538 386745

Lots of the stuff here can be personalised, too – a framed scrabble board holding your own special message?   A personalised clock? An alphabet chalkboard?  Your own combination of letters – floral?  Hanging from ribbon? Classic white?  Or fat ones made of errrmmm…mango wood?  Find them here.  Find anything with letters on.  Find lovely sentiments written on lovely objects.  Find the perfect present for anyone who can read ….or even just likes the shape of letters!  Our favourite is definitely ‘W’.

The Alphabet Store, 15 Sheepmarket, Leek.

Tel 01538 8388554

http://www.thealphabetstore.co.uk/

Wahey! A nice bit of press for Totally Locally Leek! It seems we’re setting a good example and everyone wants to be a part of Totally Locally… which is fine by us, the more the merrier!

A lovely write up in the Stone & Eccleshall Gazette that made our hearts at Totally Locally Towers go a bit fuzzy, because a bit of positivity and passion goes a long way. Its nice to be nice isn’t it!

 

Shop in your town, invest in ­­its future

Christine Conlin profiles a grass roots campaign to celebrate local shops and businesses

Chainstores, charity shops and yet more empty windows – take away the independent traders and this is the High Street’s future. Maybe we’re prepared to just let this happen, but in Leek, traders and customers are pulling together to save their independent shops. Their ‘Totally Locally’ campaign was namechecked by Moorlands MP Karen Bradley in the House of Commons debate on Mary Portas’ High Street Review. So what is Totally Locally – and could it work here too?

Totally Locally is a not-for-profitmweb-based campaign which celebrates local shops and businesses. Its founders are a brand manager and a business development coach who passionately believe that a small change in people’s shopping habits can have a huge impact on where they live. Their first brief three years ago was to raise awareness of independent shops and businesses in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. Eight other small towns have since joined up.

Totally Locally works as a two-way process. Traders get together to run local promotions, using the Totally Locally brand, its marketing expertise and website for free. For their part, shoppers volunteer to spend £5 a week in their local independent shops and businesses. It’s not a loyalty scheme but this spend is ultimately in shoppers’ interest, insists ‘Totally Locally’ co-founder Nigel Goddard. As he sees it, the small shops and businesses will have at least 10-20 local suppliers they give work to, those businesses will have another 10-20, and so on.Money spent in this way multiplies its value by boosting the local economy. In this way, every fiver spent locally becomes a “Magic Tenner”.

It makes sense – spend in a chain or supermarket and the profit ends up with a corporate company, possibly overseas. Buy locally and your money has more chance of enriching your community, through creating jobs, higher tax revenues or simply better shops. The inspiration for Totally Locally came to its other founder, Chris Sands, while on holiday in a small town in Portugal. It was miles from anywhere and as he sat in a café in its main square, he wondered how it managed to thrive. Then he noticed the cafe owner going to the bakery for bread, then the bakery owner taking her books to the accountants, the accountant calling at the stationers and the stationers calling in at the café. The money in the town was going round and round, with each business supporting the other, not just financially, but socially too.

Totally Locally’s first campaign featured Chris’s local post office and shop, helping it re-focus as a centre for local produce. ­­­“Which means I have a little shop at the end of my street that sells lovely, locally produced food, who know my son’s name and what he likes for tea,” he says on the Totally Locally website. “… in turn they support our local school and put back into the village we live in.”

In Leek, Totally Locally’s champion is Marc Briand, owner of the Colloco homeware and gift shop. He first heard about it by word-of-mouth, then persuaded three more traders to come on board. At their invitation, Totally Locally’s Chris and Nigel visited Leek last summer to assess the town’s potential and meet its independent traders. 50 came to their free presentation. Each town will need to promote itself differently, Marc told the Gazette. The Leek campaign began with a market stall where shoppers were given a Totally Locally shopping bag and were invited to recommend a ‘Hidden Gem,’ a local shop or business they particularly valued. In November, local traders took stalls at the Christmas Lights switch-on. Shortly afterwards, Leek Totally Locally produced and distributed a free leaflet listing 40 “Hidden Gems” and a map showing where to find them.

The leaflet is available both in print and online in the Leek section of the Totally Locally website. The ‘Hidden Gems’ responded with their “Fiver Fest”, special offers on goods or services in the run-up to Christmas. Five pounds would have got you two oatcakes and a coffee from the White Hart Tearoom, a children’s haircut from Spruce and Pamper hairdressers or three (unplucked) pheasants from the Home and Colonial Stores.

Totally Locally’s aim is to get people talking about them through Totally Locally’s website, this happens through email, Facebook and Twitter as well. Shoppers can sign up to receive local offers this way, and are encouraged to ‘like’ them on Facebook or re-tweet them to their friends. The website also hosts traders’ YouTube clips. One has printshop assistants popping up from behind the counter brandishing a “Totally Locally” card. Another features a lingerie shop window where a mannequin comes alive!

But has Totally Locally improved business for Colloco? “It’s certainly raising awareness,” says Marc. “Customers come in, buy a greetings card and tell me,” that’s towards my fiver this week.” And what about his bottom line? “Conditions are still tough, but last Christmas was our best one ever,” reports Marc, who’s been trading in Leek for the last four years. He reckons that if every adult in Leek spent a weekly fiver in its independent shops and businesses, the local economy would benefit, through the ‘Magic Tenner’ effect, to the tune of £4.1 million per annum. In our own area, there would be surely be no shortage of community spirit to support a campaign like this.

After reading this, maybe a couple of traders will join forces to get Totally Locally Stone or Eccleshall off the ground. But as shoppers, we needn’t wait for this to happen. I’ve been as guilty as the next person in shunning our High Streets, but I’m off now to the bank and to spend my first Totally Locally fiver with some independent traders. A greetings card and a bunch of flowers should do the trick. Then I’ll tell the sales assistant what I’m doing and why. If you like the idea as well, come on, let’s spread the word!

This one’s the latest, when we called in the other night one of the customers read it and commented out loud – that’s great that, isn’t it?
And it is – which is why we love the Roebuck, thanks guys!

If you haven’t keep your eyes peeled, stop for a minute and have a read – or read this one here. Warm fuzzy feeling guaranteed and you we’ll let you have a few minutes off from your hectic lifestyle to let it all soak in.

We could try and write more about it all to fill this half of the page but  why would we want to distract you from this mighty fine strip of  wordage on the right.

Enjoy and if you see one in a shop / pub / cafe / window why not pop your head through the door and give the folks in their a big thumbs up for being Totally Locally – we’re sure it will make their day.

This is the first Christmas material paid for and put together by Leek’s businesses (and designed for free by Totally Locally in Calderdale – yep, free). So over 40 businesses chucked in £20 (that’s 4 fivers if you’re following the fiver fest this weekend) and we’ve got 3,000 Festive Maps and a bit in the kitty for more promotion as well – which is great.

So far loads of people really like them (apart from one business so they’ve had their money back, no point in peeps being unhappy is there?). There are a few mistakes in it and we may hold a competition for the person who can find the most – watch this space.

So how did this masterpiece come together – 4 of Leek’s business owners went round asking the others if they thought it was a good idea – they said yes, handed over their dosh and we spent a few weeks pulling the content together – What’s on, a Totally Locally market, side splittingly funny (not) write ups for all the businesses, text for the pages etc. Then the fun began – design work was pulled together from Calderdale, a Sunday trip to Hedben Bridge to look at the first design, spot the typo’s move pages round (that was this Sunday 13th November). Bit of work til 1am,  2nd design Monday by Totally Locally Chris in a car whilst being driven to a Totally Locally trip in Scotland by Totally Locally Nigel with design being bounced over to Totally Locally Kerri in Norway and Totally Locally Sam co-ordintaing. Tuesday 14th 8am sent to printers, Thursday 10am  arrives in Leek, by mid day most of the shops had their leaflets, phew.

Now that is team work folks – we just hope you will seek them out have a read and maybe find out something you didn’t know, go in a shop you weren’t aware of or just enjoy it.

Thanks Very Much

From
The Totally Locally Leekies.