A Swindon skateshop is urging people to look locally when it comes to gift buying this Christmas.

Diana Kirk, who runs the ATB Skateshop near the Oasis Leisure Centre, has asked customers to use local stores that reinvest into the community rather than go to big businesses.

The skateshop, a mix between a skatepark and a shop for all things extreme sports, has already weathered two lockdowns.

The Adver spoke to Diana as part of its ongoing campaign encouraging people to shop locally and support small businesses in the run up to the festive season.

Despite doing well during the first lockdown - with a rise in sales from skateboards and paddle boarding - the second lockdown and winter period is having an impact.

She said: “We’ve been relying on our mail orders. We were worried when it all started but we did really well in the first lockdown.

“We sold out of everything skateboarding because it rose in popularity worldwide.

“We anticipated it to be big this year because of the Olympics but parents have told their kids to go outside and do some exercise because there’s been no PE.

“All that money we got from the summer was reinvested into protecting our skatepark," she explained.

“Okay we did good in the summer, but we put that back into the skatepark to save jobs or we would have had to make people redundant.

“Parents and customers know when they buy something from us it has gone into saving jobs and keeping the park open.”

Now that Swindon has been put in Tier 2, the skatepark will be reopening when lockdown ends and welcoming back customers.

“We had just reopened our skatepark before it had to close again. It had been open for two and half weeks and just putting in a new fence, a fogging machine to keep it clean and a new feature on our website for track and trace it cost us £5,500 just on that," said Diana.

“We put in this special protection then lost the money.”

“But we’re opening again on Wednesday. We will have reduced sessions so it’s less money coming in because we have fewer kids coming into the park but it’s the only way we can operate without making redundancies.”

The Adver’s We’re Backing Business campaign is supporting small independents around town this Christmas.

The second lockdown has forced shops to close during what is usually their busiest time of the year and lose out on weeks of vital trade. Promoting these companies’ services will hopefully help them to survive through to the end of the year.