A FAMILY-RUN local shop in Minster Lovell has reached the final in a top competition celebrating independent retailers across the UK.

Crescent Stores Spar Ltd has been run by Dave Lewis since 1972 and the great-grandfather is a familiar face in the village.

His shop has been chosen as one of the top 100 local convenience shops in 2015, after a rigorous evaluation process, which included a mystery shopper assessment.

For Mr Lewis the success of the shop lies in two key things – customer service and having those everyday essentials for people to pick up in a hurry.

The 73-year-old said: “We try to be friendly, give a friendly service.

“We’ve been here a number of years so we’re quite well-known in the village, but also we do stock a broad range of items.

“If someone comes in and can’t find what they want then it’s very unusual.

“We’ve got a small parade of shops up the road as competition but unless people are going to Witney, they choose to come to the shop rather than go there for their top-up items.

“That’s why we are a convenience store – the majority of it is £5, £10 and £15 shops.”

Crescent Stores Spar Ltd is independently owned by Mr Lewis and his family but is part of the Spar franchise, which means they are required to buy 95 per cent of their products from the company.

Mr Lewis runs the shop in Brize Norton Road with his wife Lyn, 67, daughter Karen, 49, son, Ian, 35, daughter-in-law Emma, 33 and about 15 other staff members.

He also has two other children, Claire, 45 and Kevin, 43, as well as 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

And having family onboard, he said, helps create a sense of community.

Mr Lewis added: “It’s a good atmosphere when everything goes well. We have our bad days when people turn up late and papers turn up late and we’re chasing our tails all day, but we’ve got a good lot of staff.

“It’s a real community sort of thing.

“We join up with Carterton Lions at Christmas and have a grotto outside and have the shop decorated up to the roof with lights. My son and his friends put lights all across the roof. It’s a real show.”

Competition judges look for shops that support their local communities, drive footfall, work with organisations such as the police, use technology to improve efficiency, and more.

Independent assessors from company Elevate said that standards in this year’s competition were higher than ever.

Detailed feedback is provided to all the shops that made the long list and hundreds of others that took part.

Mr Lewis said: “It’s an honour to even make the top 100. I don’t know if we’ll win though.

“We first entered three years ago and reached the top three in one of the categories, so we are hoping to maybe even go on and win.”

To be in the running, a mystery shopper visited the store to see how it ranked in 12 categories that Mr Lewis had given his own thoughts on.

Mr Lewis is off to Lord’s Cricket Ground on October 14, for a conference and dinner to find out if he has made the final three in any category.