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South London independent Crockatt and Powell is to close tomorrow (30th July) after almost four years of trading. Co-owner Matthew Crockatt blamed the closure on the decision to open a second branch in Chelsea last year. But he added: "That’s life and we have no regrets. It’s been a quite brilliant ride as far as we have been concerned."
Crockatt, along with another former Waterstone’s bookseller Adam Powell, opened the first shop, in Lower Marsh in Waterloo in late 2005, Last year it announced it would open a second store facing the Pan Bookshop, which had shut that January, on Fulham Road. However, Daunt Books opened a store on the old Pan site several months later. Despite a switch to stocking largely remaindered books, Crockatt and Powell’s Fulham Road branch closed in June.
Crockatt said: "In a way it’s taken us quite a long time, not to give in, but to get to the end of the road...I don’t really have any regrets because we have both more or less enjoyed it. The last six months were hard but the rest has been fun."
He said he was unsure whether either him or Powell would continue in bookselling. He said: "We had been thinking about carrying on in possibly a downsized site but . . the reason why we went to Chelsea is because we thought of there being an area where a bookshop would still work in five or 10 years time. But it’s increasingly tough to compete and it looks like the market is moving in one direction."
But he said that the shop was not a victim of the credit crunch or pressures facing independents. He said: "We made a commercial decision that didn’t turn out to be a good one."