Welcome help has come to Marlborough’s ageing population with the opening of the town’s latest enterprise – a mobility shop.
Within days, the shop, part of the Kennet Pharmacy, which is appropriately on the Figgins Lane site of the Marlborough Medical Practice, is proving there is a big demand to be met.
The shop offers anything from pliable cutlery that moulds to the hands of those suffering from arthritis to a range of the latest scooters selling at prices from £300 to £5,000.
And home delivery with back-up advice is all part of the service for the handicapped unable to travel far.
“”The potential demand is huge, and we are well aware of it,” Kennet Pharmacy director Tim Jephson told Marlborough News Online. “I hope to service we can provide will be greatly used.”
“It is not all about money but in providing another — and better — service for the community.”
Mr Jephson comes from a family of qualified pharmacists, his father, Ray Jephson, opening a pharmacy in Wroughton before being invited by Dr Nick Maurice, now retired, to start a pharmacy at Figgins Lane 25 years ago.
The present pharmacy and mobility shop premises were originally the house whose garden was used as the site for the medical practice, which was built in the garden, complete with car park.
Tim Jephson became a director three years ago. Now he, together with his father, Ray, and mother, Janine, and pharmacist brother, Nick, have joined forces with Dave Jackson and Willie McIver as joint directors in the mobility shop initiative.
Together they launched a mobility shop at Wroughton last March. “That has gone down tremendously well,” said Tim. “Then we had a conversation about launching a mobility shop here in Marlborough. Now we’re up and running.”
Lancashire-born Yvonne Parsons, who is in charge of the store, revealed: “The shop has already proved to be really popular with Marlborough’s market days our busiest. Everyone has been very complimentary about the shop. We are in exactly the right spot next to the doctors’ surgery and everything is going really well.”
Addressing the detailed individual needs of customers is the basis on which the business has been born. “We want to help people to continue to live normally,” she explained.
“What suits one person doesn’t always help another, whether it is a seat for their shower, a stair lift or a scooter that folds down and can be put into your car,” she explained.
“The smallest items include little hooks you can put on an electric plug so that you can pull it out without having to grip it and pliable cutlery that people can use to carry on feeding themselves.”
Hearing tests and hearing aids are another service, along with help for those living in care homes. “The demand for Cosyfeet footwear is really huge,” added Yvonne. “The number of people coming here for Cosyfeet shoes is amazing.”
