Battling villagers show how working together can keep local shops trading

If the vital statistics are to be believed, England’s villages are in a critical condition.

Every 12 months, about 700 rural pubs close along with 400 or so shops. Property prices are above the national average, but with pay often falling well below, many of the 750,000 people on the waiting list for rural social housing are leaving the countryside in favour of towns and cities.

Add to that the ongoing closure of rural schools – 59 in the last five years – and in many areas the flow of new blood has been stemmed, leaving many villages in danger of becoming museum pieces.

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However, amid the deluge of grim reports and depressing surveys there is at least some sign that Yorkshire’s villages are not yet prepared to wave the white flag. Nowhere more so than Burton in Lonsdale.

Nestling at the edge of the Dales and often referred to as the last village in Yorkshire, it was once home to 13 thriving potteries. However, the industry began to decline following the Second World War and seven years ago, when just two of the original potteries remained, the 630 residents were dealt another blow when the village’s only shop closed.

“It was a bit of a shock and we knew without it many of the older people would feel stranded without essentials,” says villager Gail Lister. “No-one wanted that, so the community took matters into their own hands and a committee was set up to save the shop.”

Shares at £10 each were issued to almost 200 villagers and following a well-orchestrated campaign, which saw them secure a £129,000 grant from Defra, the shop was back open in 2005.

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“Since then it has really thrived,” says Gail, who now runs the village store with Marie Sharrock and post-mistress Carolyn Stephenson. “We’ve been nominated for various awards, but it was never about winning prizes. It was always about a community wanting to do something for itself.

“The shop stocks essentials, but it also represents lots of local producers. The one-member one-vote structure means it is democratic and that the whole community has a say in how it is run. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t fought to reopen the shop, but I do know that Burton in Lonsdale would have suffered.”

It’s the kind of blueprint for revival that the rural communities charity the Plunkett Foundation is hoping to promote in an event tomorrow, which is designed to encourage other rural communities in Yorkshire to take control of their destiny. Big Society isn’t mentioned anywhere on the publicity for the Doncaster roadshow, the second in a series of events across the UK, but it ticks every box of Prime Minister David Cameron’s pet project.

Part of the Big Lottery Fund’s Village SOS campaign, communities are being offered grants of between £10,000 and £30,000 from a £5.3m pot of cash to kick-start their ideas, whether it be saving the local pub, reopening the village shop or introducing broadband to an area still struggling with painfully slow network connections.

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The project follows on from the BBC1 series Village SOS, which followed six communities in need of a shot in the arm over the space of 12 months. While the cameras stopped rolling some time ago, the Plunkett Foundation, which provides practical help and support to those wanting to set up their own community enterprise, says it has recently noticed a sharp rise in the number of requests for advice.

According to the foundation’s figures, the projects are not just a passing fad and it is keen to put paid to what it sees as the myth that pubs and shops close because they simply don’t have enough customers to make the business sustainable.

In the last 25 years just 10 of the 275 community shops it has been involved in setting up have closed – the 97 per cent survival rate compares favourably with the 46.8 per cent of new businesses that make it past the five-year mark across the whole of the UK.

“When it comes to village shops and pubs, people often say it’s a case of use it or lose it, but it’s not always that simple,” says Peter Couchman, chief executive of the Plunkett Foundation. “There can be a whole host of reasons why a pub or shop closes, from the high pump prices dictated by breweries to the fact they aren’t stocking the goods their customers want or sometimes it’s just because of a change in personal circumstances.

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“However, what we want to show is that there is a way back. Last year we set up the Community Shops Network, which allows people from different parts of the country to share their knowledge and provide support to each other.

“Communities are usually much more keen to support a venture in which they have an economic and social investment, particularly when they know that no single individual is profiting from the venture.”

A typical community shop has about 30 volunteers, each working two to four hours a week, which saves almost £28,000 a year in staff costs, while the collective average turnover last year was in the region of £33m.

While some communities have been happy just to see their shop reopen, others have gone one step further. In Slaithwaite, near Huddersfield, the community-run Green Valley Grocer shop is working with the village’s Handmade Bakery and the food group Edibles under the Colne-U-Copia banner to promote local produce.

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Last month their declaration of independence from the rest of the global food network brought some welcome publicity, but according to one of its organisers the stunt did have a serious side.

“Currently most food consumed in the Colne Valley comes from elsewhere; transported from around the country and around the world,” says Steve Smith, of Edibles. “The local community has little idea how it was produced, by whom, under what conditions, how it got to the local shops and who profits from it.

“Local food is quite the opposite; growers and producers are known, there is confidence in the quality of the food, it is highly seasonal, buying it supports the local economy and, above all, it is nutritious and tastes good.

“Buying local also builds a sense of community. Already we are seeing better and more productive land management, increasingly vibrant villages where people actually talk to each other when buying their vegetables and bread, and the fact that we are trying to make sure money is both earned and spent in the Colne Valley has to be a good thing.”

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Those sentiments are echoed by those behind Loxley Valley Community Farm. The original village has all but been subsumed in to Sheffield’s suburbs, but two years ago 20 individuals decided to reclaim a little of the countryside by securing land for a working farm.

Run as a not-for-profit enterprise, the members have since invested in pigs, chickens, ducks and bees and a proportion of each year’s produce is given away to charitable groups.

“Reviving a shop or a pub can be daunting, but it needn’t be,” adds Mr Couchman. “Yorkshire is already a hotbed of community enterprise and what we really want to do is share the many success stories and give every village in the county the chance to thrive.”

Big Lottery Fund’s Village SOS, Doncaster Racecourse, October 19. Entry to the event is free and for more information about the scheme call 0845 434 9123 or visit www.villagesos.org.uk

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