Shops invite you to stroll The Avenue

Located just across the street from the now vacant BHS, The Avenue is downstairs in the former Co-operative building and is currently home to five shops with space for potentially two more.

The brainchild of shop owners Kim Shepherd, who owns Rock A Punk, and her partner Craig Hayworth, who owns Noise Noise Noise, The Avenue will eventually be transformed into something of an underground street, complete with benches for shoppers to sit and relax on and a mural of The Steeple which Craig will create.

Craig said: “It already looks like a little street so we just want to build on that idea. Kim’s dad came up with The Avenue name.

“We want it to become like a little shopping centre down here.”

Building owner Andrew Calderwood is right behind the plans to bring the outside to the inside.

Kim said: “We made it look more like a little street of shops by adding brick wallpaper, with each shop choosing its own design of bricks to suit what they sell.”

As well as Rock A Punk and Noise Noise Noise, The Avenue is home to Mary Nisbet’s Shabby Chic Boutique, Dawn Wright’s Culture Clothing and historian Mervyn Hagger’s Pebble Theatre.

The shop owners, who are all open for business apart from Pebble Theatre, plan to hold a special launch event in the near future.