Public meeting – revised date

Apologies for moving the date of the public meeting. We’ve now confirmed the details.

• Time: 8.00 pm
• Date: Tuesday 24 November
• Venue: Buckland Brewer Village Hall

Public meeting – ?? November

The survey results have been added up and the group has agreed to hold a public meeting.

The meeting will cover:

• the plan – creating a community shop
• survey results – what you said
• your views – a chance to voice your opinion
• what next? you decide!

If you want a local shop in your community, then it is vital that you come to this meeting.

Thursday 12 November at 8.00 pm, date and venue to be confirmed.

Leave a comment to get in touch.

Your views count!

Survey being distributed

Most of the village should by now have received a paper copy of the survey. We’ll get to outer lying places and the rest of the village soon.

If you want, you can fill out the survey online. It helps us add up the numbers!

Rural communities fight back against the closure of local services – The Guardian

Every week 39 pubs shut down. Petrol stations lie abandoned. Post Offices are closing. But as Miles Brignall reports, community companies may be the answer

It was this article that alerted me to the Plunkett Foundation and the assistance providing to rural groups trying to save or resurrect local shops.

It’s not essential that any project uses their services. There are other sources of funding and assistance. Nevertheless, the examples in the article show that Buckland Brewer’s situation is not unique. There is help available and a lot of expertise and experience upon which we can draw.

From the far north of Scotland to the western tip of Cornwall, a quiet revolution is taking place. Britons, no longer prepared to take the closure of a community’s essential amenities lying down, are joining forces to take them back into local ownership.

…

Welcome to the fast-expanding world of the not-for-profit community buyout, which in most cases is funded by local people, putting up their own money and taking shares in any profit

Please help us get started by completing the survey.

Survey covering note

Access the survey.

Following the loss of the post office and shop in Buckland Brewer, a small group in the parish has got together to see whether we can open a community shop in the village.

Your shop

This would be your shop, created, owned and operated by the community. You would decide how the shop was to be run, including the products and services offered.

You decide

As a community, non-profit venture, your shop would compete with commercial shops.

Your shop might not beat major supermarkets on price every time. However, as a non-profit, your shop could offer reasonable prices. Your shop would also offer what you wanted such as local produce, particular brands or products and other services the big stores don’t offer.

We do not think we can get our post office back. But, we can look at other services that might allow you to pay bills, buy stamps or arrange parcel delivery.

Your community

This project could recreate the social focal point that our old shop provided. It could be a meeting place to have a cup of tea and a chat, catch up on what’s going on in the village. Whatever you want it to be.

Your views are important

Before going further, before we can think about planning this project, it is essential that we have your views. The shop will go ahead only if we can show that the community will support the shop 365 days of the year.

So, we are asking a couple of simple questions about whether you would use a community shop and what you would want to see from the shop. Please add any other ideas that you have. We make no promises, except that every idea will be considered.

Who are “we”?

There about a dozen of us who responded to a notice in the Village Scene about getting a village shop project going.

We have met a couple of times and have met with the Plunkett Foundation, a charitable organisation that advises people in our position. They have helped 209 communities open shops, many in Devon. There are plenty of others who have been through this experience. Help is at hand, if we need it.

If you would like to contact the group, leave a comment here and we will get in touch.

Next Steps

We will report back the results of this survey through the Village Scene and online at http://bbshop.wordpress.com. Depending on the results, we would look to convene a public meeting.

At a public meeting, probably in early September, you would have to give a mandate for the project to go ahead. A committee would be formed. It may include some of us, it may not. Several of the working group already have a lot of other commitments so may not be able to work on the committee.

But first, we need your views …

Access the survey.

Online community shop survey published

You can complete the online community shop survey.

Paper copies will be distributed around the parish very shortly.