A FATHER and son are furious they are having to close their model shop because they can't afford rising business rates.

Ken Wakefield started Wycombe Models and Engineering 45 years ago.

His son Richard joined him in 1992 and took over running the shop last year.

But last month, the family took the decision to close it down under pressure of business rates and national insurance payments imposed by the Government.

Ken, 71, said: "We're devastated. Every one of us around the table cried - but the rates are crippling. Last year they rose by 16 and a half per cent. We paid the Government a total of £35,000 last year. The trouble is there's no chance for us.

"We looked at every possible way to save money. We cut back on telephones, stationery, staffing, everything we could. We thought we would get over it, but at the end of the year the rates and national insurance were the only thing to rise."

Ken started selling nuts, bolts and screws to engineers from his dad's garage in Penn in 1962. He moved into Gomm Road seven years later and fulfilled his lifelong dream of starting a model shop.

He said: "We are sorry for our customers and we feel like were letting them down. This shop is everything to us. I thought my nine-year-old grandson, Jordan, would take over one day.

"But it's the same all over town - there's shops boarded up everywhere, and with less businesses, the ones that remain see their rates rise even more."

Richard, 41, said he does not know what he will do after the business closes, but admitted that models were becoming less profitable.

He said: "The products are half the price they were because of the Chinese manufacturers and the internet, so we have to sell twice as much. With half as many people coming through the door because models aren't as popular as they used to be, we have to sell four times as much to make ends meet."

He added that the shop would bow out gracefully, selling off stock over the next few months.

In December, Midweek's sister paper the South Bucks Star reported that Wycombe was one of the "nerdiest" towns in the country based on the number of model shops it had - but Wycombe Models is the last shop left open.