CREDITON’s Tesco superstore at Wellparks has proudly joined the Crediton Chamber of Commerce and is delighted to be part of Crediton’s vibrant business community.

The store is one of a host of new members to join the chamber including Candimama, Yellow Mouse Studios, Cox’s Butchers and Crediton Community Bookshop.

The re-vitalised Chamber of Commerce recently celebrated its first anniversary and continues to go from strength-to-strength with plans to expand further and encourage the businesses on the Lords Meadow Industrial Estate to become actively involved.

Chair of Chamber, Tara Conabeare, welcomed the store’s addition, saying: “It would be fair to say that there were some eyebrows raised when we received a request from Tesco to join us.

“I met with Stuart Bennett, the store manager at the time, and Andrew Drayton, the store’s community champion and we talked about what Tesco could bring to the group.

“I was pleased with their suggestions for working together to promote our local businesses and pleasantly surprised to learn about the work they already do in the community.

“They have a committed team and a large workforce not to mention the footfall through their store – this could be very beneficial to the town – if we can encourage those customers to travel up into the High Street.”

Since its re-formation just over a year ago Crediton Chamber of Commerce has embraced all manner of local traders and has helped in the planning, and delivery of some of Crediton’s biggest events in the past 12 months.

It was this involvement in those community events that triggered the request from Tesco, and Andrew Drayton understands how the community work carried out by Tesco fits into how the Chamber works.

He said: “Since I have been doing the job that I do we have worked with so many different and varied groups and organisations within the Crediton District, that to be able to be an active part of the business community makes natural sense.

“There are very tangible areas where our interests overlap and we believe that we can support the work that the Chamber does for the benefit of the whole of the town.”

As part of its first year anniversary the Chamber has created some stickers that members will be able to display in their windows with Q codes to take interested parties to the Chamber of Commerce website.

It is hoped that moves such as this, along with future planned activity, will bring other businesses to the organisation.

The new store manager at Tesco Crediton, Simon Anbany, is enthusiastic about displaying their credentials of being part of business in Crediton saying: “I’m delighted that our store is part of an organisation that works so hard for Crediton.

“We have about 250 people that work in our store and the overwhelming majority of them live in and around the town.

“Many of my colleagues are involved in the variety of groups that make the unique community feel of Crediton what it is, and however we can participate in the promotion of the town, it’s businesses, residents and events, then we are more than happy to do so.”

He continued: “We are just one element of an enormous breadth of many different types of business and industry within the town and to enable Crediton to flourish it is important that we all work together to achieve that.

“From what I have learned and have briefly seen for myself the Crediton Chamber of Commerce is the best way to go about that aim.”

You can check out what Crediton Chamber of Commerce is currently working on by looking at the website – or if you are a business interested in joining, the details for this are also on the website: www.creditoncc.co.uk .

You can also follow on “Facebook” by searching Crediton Chamber of Commerce.

Alan Quick