A RECORD store has been named the best in the country.

Resident Music, in Kensington Gardens, Brighton, took the title of Best Independent Retailer at this year’s Music Week Awards, which took place on Thursday.

It comes in the same year that the popular record store celebrates its 15th anniversary.

Natasha Youngs, co-founder of Resident, was very surprised, but delighted, to win the award.

She said: “I didn’t expect to win it so I prepared literally nothing for the ceremony.

“We are the people that are talking to customers over the counter and doing the grassroots hard line stuff and we love what we do, but it’s graft and it’s really hard graft.

“We thanked the awards for recognising it.

“The people I was sitting with at the awards made up a great group of independent record shops and we are spread all over the country and we work really hard together.

“Actually, I kind of want to say that I feel a little bit like I’ve nicked this off them.

“We work really hard together and so I dedicate this to all the independent record shops in the country.

“Over the 15 years we have been in business we have grown from a husband and wife team into a team of 17 staff and have doubled the size of the shop by expanding into the unit next door.”

This year’s Music Week Awards was the biggest in history.

More than 1,300 people crammed into London’s Battersea Evolution for one of the most prestigious nights in the music industry.

Resident records was set up 15 years ago by Natasha and Derry Watkins, now her husband.

The couple met at a music store in Brighton and opened Resident after discovering their mutual love of vinyl.