'It's because of what's behind us': Life in a huge shopping outlet's shadow

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

In 1995, Cheshire Oaks, the UK's largest outlet centre, opened its doors for the first time. The introduction of a new highway and an American-style shopping experience transformed a quiet, rural suburb of Ellesmere Port into one of the busiest corners of the UK.

Over these past three decades, visitor numbers have steadily increased, now attracting more than half a million shoppers every month. Join our WhatsApp Top Stories and Breaking News group by clicking this link And, as the retail park has had to adapt to growing demand, so too have the people whose homes neighbour it.

Rita Duvall Jones is nearing her ninth year on the street that borders Designer Outlet Cheshire Oaks. Despite battling often debilitating arthritis, she strives to keep her garden well-maintained for her escape-artist tortoise, Mandela, and her eight grandchildren, Cheshire Live reports. “It’s lovely here but it has got its problems.

It’s not because of anybody in this road - it’s because of what’s behind us,” she said. She says she has suffered an 'invasion of rats' and that a neighbour's security camera captured them raiding bird-feeders. “I realised that the rats were passing my back door like it was the M6," she says, blaming the nearby KFC for the problem.