A COUPLE who said they just wanted to ‘live the dream’ and open their own vintage, pre-loved and retro shop say a council note telling them to move their A-board could be the final straw in them packing up and going.

Mark Le Grande and his partner, Michelle Roundhill, have been running A Piece of the Past, in Undercliffe Road, Eccleshill, for two and a half years, but have found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

The couple rent the shop from a pharmacist which moved to Moorside. The pharmacy still had a three year lease on the premises so sublet the shop space to Mr Le Grande and his partner for £500 per month, half the cost of the rent.

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Ms Roundhill said: “The landlord did ask us if we wanted to buy the premises when the lease ran out but that is out of the question.

“We have tired to find another premises to rent but there is nothing within our price bracket.

“It is really difficult for small businesses to make ends meet and we really rely on social media and having the A board there so people see us.

“I asked three people who came in the shop the other day how they had known about us and they each said they had seen the A board and came in.”

Mr Le Grande said the final straw came earlier this week when he found a council warden note attached to his A-Board outside the shop asking that it be removed from the bin.

The bin is permanently fixed outside the shop, though is in a state of disrepair.

Ms Roundhill added: “Currently the A board is attached to the litter bin. It’s been there all this time and has not caused pedestrians a problem. We rang the number on the note as requested and a council person said the reason was that a blind person would not know the A board was there and could be injured.

“I asked them if that same blind person would be able to see the bin, because in that case, someone would be able to walk into that. They said if we didn’t remove the board they would come and take it away and we would be charged to get it back.

“I replied that I could take their broken bin away and charge them to get that back,” she said.

“There are at least 20 shops within a two-mile radius which have A board outside their premises,” she added. “I personally drove around them all and asked each of them if they had had a similar letter and they said they hadn’t. One of the shops has more than one A board outside as well.

“It does feel like we have been picked on when all we are trying to do is make a living doing something that we always wanted to do," said Ms Roundhill.

No one from Bradford Council was available to comment on this incident.

Bradford Council voted in 2017 to introduce an outright ban on advertising boards on public highways and this was enforced from April 1 2018. Just last month there was call for the Council to do more to enforce the ban when members of the Council’s Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee were given an update on how the policy had been implemented.

They heard from several disabled residents, who said that while the ban initially led to streets becoming mostly free from advertising clutter - in many areas A boards had re-emerged on public highways.