OKEHAMPTON shop Skate Warehouse has won £4,000 after beating 34 of the country’s biggest skate stores to be crowned the winner in the battle to create the most popular video.

Skate Warehouse, which is based in the hamlet of Brightley just oustide Okehampton, won the competition by filming a series of skate videos securing a total of 1.7 million views. The leading skate competition was run by Sidewalk Store Wars in association with Mountain Dew. 

Starting in an actual bedroom, Skate Warehouse has grown in the last 14 years to be one of the most popular skate shops in the South West region.

From humble beginnings, the store has had a huge influence on the skate scene supporting amateur skaters from the local area. The winning video which can be found here: www.facebook.com/ OfficialSidewalkMag/videos/1203570516384050/ shows Adam Keats from the store travelling the UK’s best skate parks and gifting deserving skaters.

Now in its second year, the Store Wars competition is unlike any other and gives back to the heart of the skate community. A local competition on a national scale, the competition launched on August 22 and since then 180 videos have been created securing over six million views, with more than £40,000 awarded across the stores.

Kate Walters, Mountain Dew brand manager: ‘Mountain Dew is a brand authentically rooted in the skateboarding and action sports community for more than two decades. We are proud to support the Sidewalk Store Wars competition and think Skate Warehouse is a very deserving winner.’

Sidewalk editor Ben Powell said: ‘Store Wars is the first contest of its kind that directly involves the skate shops and the communities they serve, rather than focusing on brands or individual skaters. By doing so, it has allowed each store’s identity and by extension, the identity of the skate scene around it, to get the shine and representation that they truly deserve.

‘Without skate stores, there is no skate scene — this is indisputable and it has given us great pleasure to be able to extend the reach of these individual shops and communities.’

Skate Warehouse is owned by Will Harrison and employs four people.

Adam Keats, who is featured in the video, and travels around promoting the business and also works in the store, said: ‘We are really pleased with the way the video was received.

‘We are really stoked to have this opportunity to take this prize money and do something good with it. We have big plans for 2017.’

Adam said the remote hamlet of Brightley was not the typical place for a skate shop but it had plenty of business coming in and there was a lot of support from the local skateboard scene.

‘We have a decent skate park down the road in Okehampton and a lot of kids are growing up wanting to skateboard so it is nice to be supporting them as well.’