Top windows for town centre shop

Looking the part: The window displays at Denis Hope have been named 'Best Christmas Window in Rochdale 2009'.

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A Rochdale town centre shop has the best dressed windows in the whole of the borough.

High-quality fashion retailer Denis Hope won the 'Best Christmas Window in Rochdale 2009' award, organised by Rochdale Borough Council and Rochdale Town Centre Management as part of the Shop Local campaign..

The Drake Street shop beat off competition from around 30 stores, winning the Rochdale category of the competition before scooping the boroughwide prize against the winners from Heywood, Middleton, Littleborough and Castleton.

Oliver Hope, E-commerce and marketing manager at Denis Hope, said: "It was great to win after putting in so much time and effort to the windows.

"Overall I think the reason that we won is because we put the effort into making five of our windows look the part, while I think a lot of our competitors just did the one.

"We had all sorts in the windows and they look fantastic. We are definitely going to carry on putting in the effort and doing our windows in this style, the competition has given us the determination to keep up the high standards."

During the competition advisors from design company International Vision visited stores across the borough to offer advice about doing up their windows. The shops then had two weeks to get windows up to scratch for the competition.

Councillor Mohammad Sharif, cabinet member for regeneration said of the competition: “We are always looking for innovative ways to support our businesses during these difficult economic times and the competition was a way of helping of our independent retailers get excited about their businesses and do something to benefit themselves. It also allowed the stores to receive invaluable training that can be used within their businesses in the future.”

Also winners were Best Dressed in Littleborough and La Fleur in Middleton, with Highly Commended awards given to Number Ten of Baillie Street, Rochdale, Big Menswear in Castleton and Tiger Feet of Church Street, Littleborough.

The winners will be taken on a retail safari around London to visit some of the greatest shop windows and independent retail businesses within the Capital and give inspiration and ideas to our local shopkeepers.

The staff at Denis Hope wanted to thank Lancashire Wallpaper, from Sudden, for supplying wallpaper for use in their award winning windows.