A POP Up Shop in Wellington town centre, which opened only last autumn, has proven to be a trailblazer for other towns.

It is a £13,000 town council initiative designed to encourage people and organisations to try out ideas for running a business in a real environment with real customers.

The council has a two-year lease on the property in Fore Street and rents it out for a week to a month at a time at fees which are below current market prices.

The project came out of a council working group formed amid concern over how to tackle the number of empty town centre shops and business premises.

Now, the council has started to receive inquiries from other organisations in Somerset interested in adapting the idea for their own communities.

The Wellington Pop Up shop is managed by town Cllr Nancy Powell-Brace, who said: “Other people have seen the publicity about what we are doing and are starting to think about copying it for themselves.

“Locally, there has been a tremendous amount of interest in renting the Pop Up Shop and already we are nearly two-thirds booked for this year right up to Christmas.

“Anybody who is thinking about trying it out really should get in touch as soon as they can to give themselves plenty of time to plan ahead.”

Town centre working group chairman Cllr Mark Lithgow, who is Wellington’s deputy mayor, said: “It is going so much better than we could have hoped for.

“We have had a real variety of business and charity tenants in the past few weeks since we opened who are offering lots of choice to shoppers in the town.

“Our town councillors are brimming with ideas for ways to help support local business and create more jobs.

“We want to be ever more dynamic and forward-thinking to keep Wellington thriving and to bring more visitors to the town.”

Cllr Andrew Govier, a former mayor, said: “It has certainly boosted footfall at that end of Fore Street as people go along to see what is different in there each week.

“It was a great idea and I am pleased to see we were justified in investing what was a considerable amount of money in the project.”