Council Chairperson Launches Make It Local Campaign and Urges to Shop Local

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council Chairperson, Councillor Laura Devlin has launched a Make It Local awareness campaign. The campaign is part of the Council’s recovery strategy following the relaxation of lockdown measures due to COVID-19.  

The Make It Local initiative will run every day on the Council’s Facebook and Twitter pages from 12-19 July 2020. Each day it will promote a different Make It Local town and highlight each location’s retail offering, supporting shops and businesses across the district as they begin to fully open. 

On launching the new campaign, Chairperson Councillor Laura Devlin said, “The Make It Local initiative, which will be running on the Council’s corporate social media channels, is an example of our commitment to supporting local produce and services.

“The Council recognises the challenges facing small businesses. Shopping local will help to ensure our businesses survive and once again thrive. Ninety-eight percent of businesses across the district are micro and small homegrown companies, and many of them are family owned.  Supporting local businesses is also supporting local families, local jobs and the local economy.”

To show her support of the recovery process on our high streets, the Chairperson undertook a visit to retailers to provide confidence to consumers and reinforce the message that the Council supports all the efforts the business community is making to get up and running again. 

Speaking about her visit to local retailers, Chairperson Councillor Devlin said, “As we continue to move into a recovery phase, it is important that people support their local industries and suppliers.  All businesses have experienced severe difficulties over the period of lockdown and now that they are beginning to operate again, it is crucial that the community has the confidence and motivation to support them.

“Make sure you support our local media campaign on Facebook and Twitter starting on Sunday 12 July as we urge people to support local industry and our retail and hospitality sectors. As we move forward, please assist the recovery process in Newry, Mourne and Down and shop local.”