Former Thomas Cook team open latest Polka Dot shop

Since the Polka Dot Travel store officially opened on 28 December in Stoke-on-Trent, the five-strong team has jumped straight into peaks and been busy with clients.

They were offered their former jobs back when the Cook shop - which is two doors down on The Strand - reopened as Hays Travel, but the group signed with Polka Dot instead.

"We were going through the tumult with Thomas Cook, and I have never been through redundancy before; I didn’t know in a couple of weeks we would be talking to Polka Dot to come back to our jobs to the customers we love in the town we love," said Donna Jones, Polka Dot Longton’s manager.

"Longton has always had a number of travel agents, so there is enough business for everyone.

"Even though you are offering the same thing, we are different people and a different service so I don’t think it will cause too much of a problem – and we are friends, we give them a wave in the morning."

The team operated from the shop’s empty shell during a transitionary period over Christmas, but now the premises is officially open.