Isle of Man Enterprises Village Walk in Onchan is continuing its support for local entrepreneurial businesses by hosting two Christmas ’pop up’ shops, run by the ’Keird Collective’ and Jack Dunn of Sound Records.

Keird is a collective of up and coming Manx designers and creatives.

It features ’Flamingo’ vintage and upcycled clothing, textile design and illustrator Alice Fayle, artist ’Yarnie Grainne’, maker and illustrator Quinn Shipton and art and design form Kim Graziano of KimGee Studio.

Sound Records is retailing new and vintage Vinyl records with forgotten classics and established stars from the fifties onwards sitting alongside new artists and some of the latest albums, capitalising on the resurgence for second hand and modern vinyl records.

The store also is also retailing an eclectic collection of vintage men’s clothing.

Over the last year the Village Walk has been reborn as a local hub for new and emerging locally owned and operated businesses in the health, wellbeing, education, leisure, food, craft, creative, biomed, IT, niche finance, training and charitable sectors.

Both of these ’pop up’ stores complement Village Walk’s innovative traders and practices.

More than 150 people now work at the centre, which is rapidly being re-established as the community focal point for Onchan.

Carol Glover, director of Village Walk, said: ’I have worked in the retail sector nationally and internationally for most of my career, and I have never seen a period of such unprecedented tech driven change - in fact it’s more like seismic restructuring currently.

’The Village Walk has traditionally been a shopping centre serving Onchan.

’However over the last two years it has been re-invented as a ’community hub’ offering a range of modern day services, products, activities and employment opportunities, on Onchan’s doorstep.

’It is easily accessible on foot, cycling and by public transport.’

She added: ’With the last two reserved shop units vacant during December, it seemed appropriate that we support some young ’’start-ups’’ this month to give them first-hand experience of running their own customer facing businesses, and maximising their learning opportunities for the future.

’Partnering with the local, fast growing social media platform ’Gef the mongoose’ enabled us to achieve this quickly.’

She concluded: ’The Village Walk has the potential to not just delight customers but also become a centre of entrepreneurial excellence in emerging markets, which is a key opportunity for the island’s future economic development.

’The centre is owned by Isle of Man Enterprises - itself one of the largest Isle of Man owned and operated entrepreneurial businesses,’

Carol Glover, Isle of Man Enterprises with Jack Dunn, Sound records

Jenny James with Andrew White, Isle of Man Enterprises

Jenny James and Grainne Sheard, Keird Collective