Voucher Scheme in Hay

I was sceptical at first, when I saw the email sent out by Andrew at the Chamber of Commerce to all the local businesses.
Then I had a chat to Derek at the Wholefood shop, who showed me some of the vouchers, too, and it seems to be quite a reasonable idea.
The idea is that gift vouchers for £5 and £10 will be available from Pughs, and can be used at any shop in Hay with a door sticker that says they're in the scheme. Then the shopkeeper can redeem the money from a central point (presumably, Pughs will be administering it).
I can see it would be quite a good idea when work colleagues have birthdays - it can be hard to think of suitable presents, but a voucher would always be useful if it could be used along with the normal shopping.
There are similar schemes elsewhere in the country - the Totnes Pound, for instance, and there's another scheme in Bristol. The idea is to keep money circulating within the local economy, instead of it being spent in chain stores and disappearing who knows where.
The scheme will be launched at the turning on of the Christmas lights on 27th November.