'Meat buying habits have changed and the high street has declined'

A butcher has announced he is closing the shop he has worked in for 35 years due to the decline of high street shopping and changes in customer habits.

Paul Schofield took over The Quality Butcher in Penistone, near Barnsley, 20 years ago after the previous owner's retirement.

He said there had been a "significant" decrease in footfall since he first started a job there at the age of 13.

"Fewer people are choosing to cook meals like roast dinners at home regularly," he said.

He cited increasing overheads, including staff costs and energy bills, as other reasons for the business struggling.

"Everything's gone sky-high. Electric, gas, national insurance, minimum wage. We just can't get nowhere.

"My electric bill's just more than doubled."

He added: "Plus the high street is getting killed. People prefer to go to the supermarket now."

When he started as a butcher's boy in the early 1990s, the street also had a greengrocer, fishmonger, DIY shop and many other thriving businesses that have since closed.

The area is traditionally agricultural, and footfall was once driven by the cattle and "fur and feathers" markets. The livestock auctions did not return after the foot and mouth epidemic in 2001, and a Tesco store opened in 2011.

"Everybody came shopping back then. Penistone Market was a good market. It was jam-packed solid.

"The weekly cattle market brought people into the town centre too, but that closed. And the supermarkets opened.

"It's not the same, I've seen the place go downhill, we've lost a lot of other shops."

Mr Schofield added that people were generally buying less meat, favouring different types of cut and eating out more than cooking at home.

He said a lot of cheaper cuts are now sold to restaurants rather than butchers.

"The young 'uns don't stop at home for Sunday dinners now, do they?

"They don't cook every Sunday at home any more, they go out. It's all changed now."

Mr Schofield's last day of trading in Penistone is today, but he will continue to run his shop in Swinton, near Rotherham, and deliver to Penistone customers from it.

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