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Fightback on main street for local shops
Village shops appeared to be on their last legs. Michael Hickling begins a series on how they are fighting back.
Village shops are one of the vital signs which indicate how a small community is thriving. This is not just because of the goods they sell. Social isolation is often a fact of rural life, especially for the less well-off and the shop is a comfort zone where the people behind the counter know you and your family and your habits. Passing through their door may be the only regular opportunity some people have to exchange a few words with familiar faces.
But shops don't earn money for offering an incidental social service and as the character of villages has altered, along with shopping habits, many have gone to the wall.
About 1,200 village shops across the country have shut in the past couple of years and at the beginning of 2009, as the recession started to bite, the picture looked even gloomier. The trade body,
the Rural Shops Alliance, predicted forthcoming closures of over 30 a month.
But that has not happened, or at least not to that extent. There are still blank shop frontages to be found in main streets in pretty little villages that tell a dismal tale. But there are now some green shoots which have taken root for a variety of reasons.
Oddly enough, it seems some village shops have done well out of the national programme of post office closures. And the general economic downturn has not wreaked the havoc that was feared. A number of shopkeepers have soldiered on, even though in some cases they are making less than the minimum wage.
But elsewhere, energetic and imaginative people have come in, taken on a failed enterprise and re-fashioned it as their 21st century version of the village shop. There's a new one at Welburn in North Yorkshire which offers a fresh take on an old idea. In other parts of Yorkshire, local people have kept alive their traditional shop by devising a business model tailor-made for their community. This usually relies on willing pensioner volunteers organised by a small team drawing on professional expertise.
Stillington in North Yorkshire is a case in point. Midgley, a hill village in the upper Calder valley, is another. Here some years ago they opened a volunteer-run shop which also has rooms above for things like a pre-school nursery and social events. They were going to lose these premises and so vigorously set about fund-raising for an alternative.
This has just paid off – the Big Lottery Fund has decided to back them to the tune of 50,000. It means they can now afford the 170,000 needed to purchase the freehold of empty retail premises which many decades ago used to be the Midgley Co-op.
To make it work, locals have bought a 50 share in the enterprise called Midgley Matters Ltd. Share certificates issued are repayable after five years and no interest is paid on them in the first five years, so in effect this is an interest-free loan.
Reg Slater, a retired accountant in Midgley and one of the prime movers behind the scheme, says: "The new premises are a lifeline for our shop and other community activities. All other options had been explored, and undoubtedly without this building to provide an anchor, seven years of work for community benefit would come to an end.
"Our volunteer force, nearly 100 strong, are absolutely delighted. By bringing this old Co-op building back to life for Midgley village we will be also re-establishing a linkage with the old Co-operative movement."
Their shop sells a general range of grocery goods and also helps to boost the incomes of the many local farmers and producers who supply it. Its "social service" includes free delivery in the village for the housebound and those with special dietary requirements.
Car-less residents who have an appointment somewhere else can ring the shop who will try to find another resident to take them.
On the national picture, Trevor Dixon, the director of the Rural Shops Alliance, says: "The rate of closure has been less than anticipated
this year. It's become evident that some people are rediscovering their local shop – possibly because they have decided to limit their main shopping experience at the supermarket. They are not going so frequently and so are topping-up locally.
"There is a demand for fresh products from bread to shortlife dairy products. But in general the fresh side has not been a great strength of the independent village shop. It's been difficult to get suppliers and then there's the cost of the cool cabinets. We've been advocating investment in that area and I think retailers are up for improving their business and focusing it on what customers want.
"But shop margins may not be enough to be able to invest. Often it's just a husband and wife and when they look at the net profit at the year end it doesn't equate with the national minimum wage.
"As a trade association, we bellyache about legislation, but it is a huge burden which bears down more heavily on small shops. We have become a nation of red tape and health and safety and that has a knock-on effect for village shops.
"Another factor – although it's not huge in terms of numbers – was the post office closure programme which ended last year. Some of those that lost their post office business have been reinvigorated, although that seems almost counter-intuitive.
"There's also a mood about, which is coming from local authorities and parish councils, which says rural communities are important, that the shop is one of the central facets of village life and that it needs more support, some of it financial.
"The shops' USP – unique selling point – could be sourcing locally. But a retailer is busy running his business. There may well be a local butcher who is looking for another outlet nearby, but it's difficult to get them together.
"Success here is also about presentation. There was an organic food shop in Yorkshire selling sweetcorn from a local supplier. Customers weren't very interested. Then they added a sign to the display – saying it had been picked by Fred at 7.30 at the local farm – and the sweetcorn dashed out of the shop.".
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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