FRIENDLY shop staff have helped to make Westhoughton one of the best towns in the country for shopping, according to a new government survey.

The market town was placed 13th out of more than 80 shopping places across the UK following a government-backed retail study, with Bolton not far behind at 15th — and both ahead of towns such as Nottingham.

They were the only two places in the North West to make it into the top 20.

A team of undercover shoppers visited local businesses to assess how well towns performed in different areas, from shop standards to town centre cleanliness.

The study was carried out for the g o v e r n m e n t ’ s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which wanted to find out how market towns were performing following the recession.

The study was made up of three parts, including a mystery shopping test to rate the overall performance of shops, a survey of 100 shoppers to find out what they thought of the facilities, and a town centre assessment to rate the general impression.

Cllr Cliff Morris, Leader of Bolton Council, said: “It is a great achievement for Westhoughton and shows that the centre can more than hold its own.

“The results of the Location Model give us and all traders in the town a real feel of where we stand compared to other similar towns across the country.” The mystery shopping test, carried out in April, evaluated the performance of 36 independent retailers in Westhoughton, including 27 shops and nine market stalls. A total of 23 of the 27 shops recorded individual scores above 80 per cent and 24 had their customer service rated as good or very good.

This meant that in 98 per cent of the cases, mystery shoppers would return to the shop and the same percentage said they would recommend it to a friend. The market traders were recognised as being very approachable (94 per cent) and had good product knowledge (89 per cent).

Cath Higham, from Westhoughton Indoor Market, said: “All the traders in Westhoughton have done themselves proud. I think it’s now safe to say that Westhoughton is a fine place to shop and has a great retail offer. Of course, we will not let the good work fall away.”

The best performing shop in Westhoughton was Waterfields Bakery, in Market Street, which scored the highest mystery shopping score of 97.9 per cent, closely followed by Decorsave Discount Paints and Wallpaper, also in Market Street, with 96.7 per cent.

Terry Whatmough, aged 64, who has been running Decorsave for more than 10 years, said: “I was really surprised and it was a great compliment.

I am a basic sort of shop and I’ve always been cheap and cheerful, there’s no fancy displays, I just sell on price.

“The big stores advertise all these money off and ‘buy one get one free’ offers but people don’t actually know what they are paying. I just buy and sell it cheap.”

Waterfields manager Barbara Fleming, aged 29, attended an awards evening at Carnegie Hall, Westhoughton, on May 20 to accept a framed certificate and champagne. She said: “I was really pleased and proud of my staff because they didn’t know that we were getting mystery shopped so it’s nice to see they are working hard for the customers.

It’s nice to keep the independent retailers and keep hold of that community spirit. I just hope it gives people a boost.”

When 100 shoppers were asked for their opinion of Westhoughton, two-thirds felt it was clean and tidy and 81 per cent said public facilities were easy to find.