AN INDEPENDENT retailer in Cowley Road, Oxford, has been saved from closure - by sweets.

Bead Games, a fancy dress hire and vintage clothing shop, opened Sweet Heaven - a traditional sweetshop - to help subsidise it.

Bead Games had been struggling to afford the 50 per cent rent increases that have been imposed along the road over the past two years by private landlords and Oxford City Council.

But since turning the front half of Bead Games into a traditional confectionery shop, owner Erica Steinhauer said that life for the business has definitely got sweeter.

She said: "The sweets have saved us, they really have.

"This time last year everyone along the road was closing and moving away.

"It really looked pretty glum for us and it got to the point when I thought this is it, I am going to have to leave'.

"Then one of my friends said to me why don't you sell sweets?'"

The Sweet Heaven concession opened at Bead Games in November last year and specialises in traditional sweets in rows of old-fashioned glass jars and boxes.

The turnaround in fortune for the shop signals hope for Cowley Road's independent retailers who had feared their street's cultural diversity was under threat from big brands.

Among the national chains to move into the road in the past ten years are Boots, Tesco and more recently Costa Coffee and the Carling Academy - formerly the Zodiac nightclub - which both opened last year.

Ms Steinhauer said: "Now when people come in especially for our sweets they notice the postcards and then the clothes and end up staying for a while.

"We specialise in nostalgia. There is something for every age. Hard-boiled sweets like sherbert lemons and humbugs for the older people and liquorice, marshmallows and every variety of jelly for the younger ones.

"Flying saucers and Hershey's chocolate kisses for everyone.

"I did have some misgivings about selling sugar because we all eat so much of it these days. I used to joke about being a sugar pusher.

"But now my motto is that a little bit of what you fancy will not hurt you.

"The shop has a sweet from everyone's youth in it and the way I see it it is never too late to have a happy childhood."