SHOPKEEPERS at the Pill end of Newport city centre have hit out at the council for “forgetting about them” after the closure of Newport Bus Station.

The council have re-routed buses to the one end of Commercial Street, which shop owners towards the Pill end of town say has left them struggling for custom.

The owners of these shops say the new bus routes have hit them hard, with the number of customers in their shops significantly down.

And they say if things continue as they are with no support from the council, then they are all concerned for the future of their businesses.

Piara Singh, 46, who has owned Marina’s for nine years, is expecting to turnover a loss for the first time since taking over.

He said: “Last year, I made a profit of £15,000, but I’ll be making a loss this year.

“There aren’t any customers coming in.

“We used to get 100 customers in here a day, but it’s down to around 20 a day in the past few weeks.

“The worst thing the council have done is moving the bus station.

“They should’ve put more bus stops at this end and evened it up both ways. Now, everything is geared towards the market and that end of town.

“We have to pay £10,000 a year in business rates, but there’s no one walking down here now and we get no consideration from the council.

“We keep ringing them, but no one ever comes back to us.”

The owners of Jack’s News, Impressions and Fun Factory all echoed Mr Singh’s comments.

Jason Russell, partner of Fun Factory, said: “We’ve seen a decline in less than a week.

“Before the bus station shut it was good and steady, but the last two weeks it’s dropped straight away to less than half.

“It’s terrible as people don’t want to walk from that end of town all the way down here so there’s no passing trade.

“The council refer to this end as the Pill end instead of the city centre, so why are we being charged city centre rates? If the council don’t stand up and listen to us and put an action plan into place, then we’re going to the Welsh Assembly. If it stays like this, then I don’t think we’ll see 2014 out.”

Newport council was unavailable for comment.