Trouble in Royal Deeside – Coffee Shops in Uproar
Trouble in Royal Deeside –
Coffee Shops in Uproar
Ballater in Royal Deeside has had a bit of a rough twelve months. In December the River Dee burst its banks as the result of very heavy and prolonged rains with Storm Frank with added snow melt from the mountains and flooded the village, cutting it off from neighbouring Braemar and the rest of the world. The floods destroyed bridges and roads and saw caravans floating away down the valley. Many householders lost everything and businesses were near sent to the wall.
Deeside Victim of Storm Frank
On Bridge Street in the centre of Balleter hotels, shops, cafes were inundated by several feet of water. In all some 100 small businesses and some 600 homes were affected. It has made the locals of this once thriving community a little sensitive to the buffets of fortune and who can blame them? The small businesses of Balleter have all striven to get back on their feet and so when the Balleter Co-op started a service that they felt rivalled and undercut their own, they were peeved to say the least.
Would She Be Amused?
Because Royal Deeside is a favourite with the royal family the area gets a fair few tourists and they all spend a bit with the local traders, with cafes and coffee shops getting direct benefit from the visitors. So you can imagine their disappointment to find that the local Co-operative supermarket was selling Costa coffee from a vending machine at cut-throat prices. The Co-op is just right by the old station where Queen Victoria used to alight from her royal train to go to Balmoral all those years ago. What would the unmerry monarch have made of this brouhaha? I’m guessing she wouldn’t have been amused.
Brouhaha Coffee Blues
There are locals concerns that the Costa machine could hit coffee shops still recovering from the floods which ravaged the village on December 30. It is a situation that isn’t likely to be resolved any time soon as the Co-op seems pretty unrepentant and the locals pretty hot under the collar as several flood affected coffee shops were just about to re-open.
Royal Brew Ha Ha Blue
Now we don’t take sides here at James Pirie, we love the Co-op, but we are also a relatively small business too. So what is best to do is to choose a non controversial cup of tea for the moment. And what better porcelain to drink from than the charming Portmeirion Botanic Blue collection and yes it is blue! But we have a price reduction that won’t give you the blues, so forget that brouhaha and have a brew ha ha and put a smile on your face.
