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We have been without a local shop (for local people) for some years now but recently a group has come together to investigate the feasibility of opening a new community shop. Whilst it is still quite early days, a survey and public meeting has shown that there is strong support for such a venture. |
Gilly Whittington gave the following report at the recent meeting held in the Village Hall.
On 24th March, we held a village meeting to discuss setting up a community run village shop. At this meeting a representative from the Village Retail Services Association (Virsa) discussed how Virsa can help villages with all aspects of the process of setting up such an enterprise. Questionnaires had been sent out during the previous few weeks, and when we collected them and analysed the responses, it looked as if we had sufficient interest to take this on to the next stage, which is to invite all those who gave their names as interested in being on the steering committe, to a meeting when we can appoint officers of the committee and move forward with registering as an IPS, the legal structure recommended by Virsa.
This project will need funding, which will mean applying for grants, and raising money from both within the village and from outside sources. We already have some offers of share purchases, and intend to secure more. We would hope that the Parish Council might consider making a grant, and we will be investigating whether the district and county councils have schemes to help village projects which might benefit us. The Village Core programme can offer up to £ 20,000 if we can match their contribution from our fund raising.
At the moment it looks likely that whilst the village hall's Stage 2 plans include space for a shop, until such time as that becomes a reality, we would site the shop temporarily in a portacabin on the village hall site. We hope that we can work closely with the village hall committee; it seems probable that having a shop actually up and running will assist the village hall in any application they might have for development grants. We will need to apply for planning permission at an early stage.
We will keep the village informed at all stages of the progress of this project.
If you have any views on this, please get in touch through the contacts page.