Home to the world’s oldest football club Notts County, ice skating duo Torvill and Deane and Britain’s favourite folklore legend Robin Hood, Nottingham is a city of many accolades. The city sits 30 miles from Sheffield and Leicester and just 15 miles from Derby, meaning its optical practices are kept busy providing eye care for a large population.
Situated in the theatre district of the city, Stephen Donald Eyewear does not benefit from the usual footfall of the retail sector. But as owner Kevin Wood explains, this has little effect on the business. He says: ‘We’re not on the high street but located in the entertainment sector where there are lots of restaurants and a cinema. This means we get a lot of walk-bys at night looking at our window displays, with a lot of customers coming back during the day.’
Wood (pictured) places great importance on the practice’s window displays to draw patients in. ‘We advertise a range of designer frames in the window, and as we are a Luxottica elite client, we have a large TV screen in the window with five or six screens advertising our brands. We stock Ray-Ban, Chanel and Tiffany as well as bespoke brands like Oliver People’s and Lindberg.’
Competition is widespread in a lively city like Nottingham, pressing practices to develop a unique selling point. Wood says: ‘Unlike others, we don’t try to compete with Specsavers or other multiples on price. Instead we’re at the high end of the market, and have a 50/50 split between NHS and private patients. We stand out because we have a contact lenses centre attached and attract a more premium brand customer.’
Nottingham’s oldest independent practice, Gray and Bull Opticians, has followed a similar path. Practice manager Darrel Saxton says: ‘Over the past few years we have moved towards a high end practice, so we get fewer and fewer NHS patients. We now do more niche frames like Moscot and Valentine rather than run-of-the-mill products.’
According to Optique Vision practice manager Mark Johnson, wearing glasses has never been more popular. ‘Glasses are cool – when I was young you were just the kid in glasses. But now people ask for plano lenses because they want designer frames.’
Optique Vision has now begun to move away from traditionally popular brands like Ray-Ban. ‘When I first started in optics, we would get through a lot of Ray-Ban frames, now people are more aware of more optical brands like Persol, Garrett Leight and Lindberg,’ says Johnson.
Over the past six months, OCT has been introduced into the practice, which has been met with outstanding popularity, he added.
Who’s in town?
Total: 11
Independents: 8
Multiples: 3
Average cost
Prices for an eye examination range from free to £330. The average cost is £25.
Population - see pie chart
Nottinghamshire population: 758,800 (Nottingham City: 305,650 2011 Census)
Community eye care
According to the Locsu Atlas Map of Optical Variation, Nottinghamshire Local Optical Committee has secured a contract for NHS City CCG in cataract referral, glaucoma repeat readings and low vision.
Health and affluence
- The average house price in Nottingham is £171,710 (Rightmove, 2016) compared with an average of £216,750 for England and Wales (Land Registry, 2016).
- NHS expenditure on vision problems in Nottingham per person is £65, compared with the UK average of £89 (RNIB Sight Loss Data Tool 2015).
- 1,410 patients live in Nottingham with early stage wet AMD and 690 with dry AMD (RNIB).
- There are about 2,150 people living in Nottingham who have cataract, 2,340 people with glaucoma and 16,000 with diabetes. Some 6,140 patients have diabetic retinopathy according to RNIB figures.
Fun facts
Nottingham is the birthplace of two of the UK’s most well-known brands: Raleigh bicycles and Boots.
Local grocer Frederick Gibson Garter invented HP Sauce in 1895 in his back yard in Nottingham, but then sold the recipe for £150 to settle unpaid bills.
King Charles I started the Civil War near Nottingham Castle in 1642.
The pioneering novel ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ was written by Alan Sillitoe and is based upon his life in Nottingham.
Ibuprofen was invented in Nottingham and was originally used to cure the hangover of its creator, Dr Stewart Adams.
