A SUCCESSFUL florist who will close her Witney town centre shop today says Brexit was the 'last straw'.

Rosa Ashby has run Rosa Flowers in Witney since November 1997, but the store will shut for good today due to rising costs.

Mrs Ashby imported flowers entirely from the Netherlands, but she said prices had risen by a fifth since the Brexit referendum in June 2016.

The Witney resident believes costs are likely to increase further, making it even more difficult to run the store.

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She said: “It’s been an uphill struggle for the last five years, but since the referendum things have got harder.

“When the [value of the] pound dropped it made the costs go up.

“People say ‘buy flowers in this country’, but I can’t, all we’re growing are tulips. I can’t stock flowers with one or two varieties.

“The Dutch know what they’re doing as they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years."

The decision will come as a shock to thousands of Witney residents, but Mrs Ashby said it had been 'a couple of months' in the making.

Rosa Flowers is open for the last time today as the shop sells its last few items of stock.

Mrs Ashby and her husband of 45 years, Jim, spent all of yesterday clearing the store, and they expect to be on site all of tomorrow morning for the final clear-up.