Villagers in tax pledge over shop

Villagers will pay extra council tax if the shop fails

Villagers in west Dorset who borrowed council money to reopen their local shop have agreed to a rise in council tax should the project fail.

Residents of Thorncombe have borrowed £127,000 from West Dorset District Council to buy and reopen the shop.

If it fails and the shop committee cannot make the repayments, the villagers have already voted for a rise in council tax to pay the money back.

The shop, which will be staffed by volunteers, reopened earlier.

Roger Greaves, chairman of the village shop committee, said: "We've set ourselves up as an industrial and provident society and as such it's an organisation that cannot make a profit.

"It can make a surplus, which we obviously hope we are going to do, but the surplus can only be used to plough back into the business or it has to be used for charitable purposes."

'Worth the risk'

Claire Robertson, manager of a former Woolworths store in Dorchester - who rebranded and reopened it as Wellworths - opened the new shop.

The store will have one paid member of staff but additional help will be provided free of charge by villagers.

The villagers voted on the council loan, effectively voting for an increase in council tax if the shop fails.

Villager Paula Sowerbutts said: "That would be something that would affect us because we're council [tax] payers here, but it was such a small, minimal amount that it was definitely worth the risk."

Councillor Robert Gould, leader of West Dorset District Council, said: "Where perhaps it might have been quite difficult for the shop to have got a commercial loan, we're able to offer a loan on a fixed term at low interest rates and on, perhaps, easier terms than they would have got commercially, so we were very pleased to be able to back this project."

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