Villagers fight for their own store

By Sarah Portlock BBC News, Warwickshire

Will the villagers be able to keep their shop open?

Villagers all over the country are coming together and joining forces to open and run their own village shops. But how successful are they likely to be?

When Rod Scott moved to Barford in Warwickshire 30 years ago, he joined a community which had around seven shops, including a hairdresser, a butcher, a sweetshop and a bakery.

Now the village, which has 1,170 residents, has no shop at all except for a post office which is open for three afternoons a week and is run from inside the village hall.

Lost shop

If anyone wants a newspaper or a pint of milk they face a six-mile round-trip into Warwick or Wellesbourne.

"The worst occasion was when we lost the last shop," Mr Scott said.

We lost the heart of the village Villager Rod Scott

"We lost the heart of the village in a way. People would walk to it, meet people and spend time talking. Now the only people you see walking round the village are taking their dogs out."

The village shop closed when the previous owners retired and no-one else came forward.

They insist it was financially viable, and are now in the middle of an ambitious plan to open their own store.

Fund-raising plus grants over the last two or three years have raised �220,000 - but at least �35,000 more is needed.

Villagers have paid �20 each to have a share in the shop, currently being built on the village green, next to the village hall.

The new shop is being built on the village green

They plan to stock local produce and newspapers and include a bakery, cafe and internet access.

Villagers hope to have it up and running by the end of the year, at a cost of about �130,000 more than originally thought.

Kirsty Healy, chairwoman of the Barford Village Shop Community Interest Company, said it had been a lot more work than expected.

"I think if some of us then what we knew now we would not have been so keen to put our hands up and volunteer," she said.

"But the reaction to the scheme has been fantastic. We have had very little opposition, even when we lodged a planning application to build upon the village green.

The villagers only have a post office for three afternoons per week

It currently has 170 such shops in its directory, including one in Claverdon, six miles down the road from Barford.

Mike Perry, researcher and communications manager for Virsa, said such shops generally proved to be successful.

He said: "The shops are hard work, we make no bones about it. It's a lot of hard work by a lot of people. But the reason they work is that they are community-based."

A factor of the success tends to be the type of community which gets behind the project.

Village optimism

"They tend to be communities with high wage earners living there, perhaps people who can loan a reasonable amount of money to help with set up costs, or perhaps people who have the skills to lend to the project - retired lawyers for instance," he said.

"There also tends to be clusters of shops, villagers will see what a neighbouring community has done and think about setting up their own."

Accountant and Barford villager Mary Peirson said she was optimistic the business would be profitable.

"People will value it," she said. "The last shop had a turn over of nearly a quarter of a million pounds and that was about seven years ago. There is no reason why we can't aim for that."

• Anyone wishing to contribute funds to the Barford Village Shop can do so by visiting their website.

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