A not-for-profit shop will take over a prominent building on Aberystwyth’s main shopping street later this month.

The Climate Shop - which already has a store in the former Lampeter post office and raises funds towards planting trees with a community forestry project in Kenya - has announced it will move into the former Dorothy Perkins and Burton building on Great Darkgate Street on 21 September.

They said the new shop would “be more of a department store than a shop”, and work to fit out the building is underway.

They said the opportunity to take over the building was “really exciting”.

The news follows the Sense charity announcing it will take over the former M&Co building on the opposite side of Great Darkgate Street last month.

The main shopping street in the town has seen several national chains leave amid financial pressures exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic leaving a number of prime shopping units lay empty.

The Burton and Dorothy Perkins building had been the subject of an approach by cafe and restaurant chain Loungers late in 2019 after problems with the Yr Hen Ysgol development - but those plans were withdrawn over resident complaints and Ceredigion council planners recommended the plans for refusal over fears that the business would “not be appropriate and will interrupt trading on the main retail street in Aberystwyth”.

Climate Shop is run by Treeflights Ltd which started life in 2006.