 On 23rd February 2007 Farmers Weekly published a feature on
the Best Village Shop/ Post Office in the South of England (according
to the Countryside Alliance's Best Rural Retailer competition!).
Abbotts Ann Village shop and Post Office is a community run initiative
that is a model for the future of village retailing. The volunteers are
also supporting National Post Office week, having fought so hard to
save their own. Read on for "A Village Votes with its wallets" by Mary
Vere-Parr.......
There is something of a party atmosphere at the Abbotts Ann Village
Shop and Post Office. Chalked up on the blackboard outside the brick
and flint building at the heart of this village near Andover in
Hampshire are the words: "Thanks to all of you who voted for us."Inside
the purpose-built store, manager Geraldine Heather, assistant manger
Carol Murphy and post mistress Linda Reading jokingly "polish their
haloes" for winning Best Village Shop/Post Office in the South of
England in the regional round of the Best Rural Retailer Competition -
organised by the Countryside Alliance and supported by Farmers Weekly.
It also came close second in the national awards announced earlier this
month. "I'm told we polled the highest number of votes in the
competition," Geraldine says, "even though we only got involved last
October, which was relatively late."The trio celebrated the shop's
success last weekend with a party for the 30 volunteers who help man
the tills, clean the shelves, check stock sell-by dates and keep the
car park outside pristine. "We are very fortunate to have so much
support," Geraldine says, "Many of our volunteers are retired they
enjoy the chance to give something back to the village and the social
contact."
News also seems to have spread beyond the village and
its usual four-mile catchment area. "There's been a lot of strange
faces in this week," Carol comments.So what makes this shop worth a
visit? For sure, customers and the Countryside Alliance judges value
its range of stock and services. Known locally as the village's
"mini-Harrods", at least three villagers do their entire weekly shop at
the store. For others, it offers quality and and competitively-priced
goods from loo roll to local honey. "We all know it is essentially our
convenience store," writes Geoff Dinkele, a shop volunteer, in this
month's Abbotts Ann Village Shop Association Newsletter, "But do we all
realise that some of our goods are cheaper than the identical goods in
Waitrose or the emporium in Stockbridge?" "We're cheaper on some items
than Tesco," Geraldine asserts, admitting to regular sorties to the
local supermarkets to check out the competition. The shop also offers
goods you wouldn't find in a supermarket - 12 local suppliers deliver
home-baked cakes and quiches, eggs, honey, fruit, veg and flowers and
handmade greeting cards. You can pick up bread freshly-baked on site
each morning along with your daily newspaper, collect your
dry-cleaning, or send your photos for processing. In addition, the shop
boasts a thriving second-hand book club (hardbacks ?1, paperbacks 50p)
and a tea and coffee area popular with local mums after the morning
drop-off at the village primary school over the road.It also offers a
full range of post office services. "The services we offer draw people
of all ages and complement one another," postmistress Linda Reading
says. "Banking is particularly popular with mums with small children
and the elderly, but lots of people just come in for their stamps, then
pick up a paper and a drink."All this is on offer in a traditionally
attractive, but thoroughly modern building. It is stress-free shopping
that supermarket slaves can only dream of, but it's the can-do attitude
that singles Abbotts Ann out and, in the words of the Countryside
Alliance judges turns the shop into "a thriving community hub which
supports the village and the surrounding communities". Carol sums the
ethos up: "Nothing's too much trouble, we're always friendly and,
because we live in the village, we know everyone. Everyone says that
shopping here makes them happy." Geraldine adds: "We're always willing
to go the extra mile, delivering shopping and coal to the housebound or
checking up on a regular customer who hasn't been in for a while to
make sure they're OK."From its conception, the shop has been very much
a village project. Like so many other rural communities, Abbotts Ann
found itself facing the prospect of losing two vital services when, in
November 1998, the commercially-run village shop and post office was
sold as a residential house. The story could have ended there, but the
resourceful villagers approached the new owners and asked them to let
them use part of the original shop as a post office counter and shop on
a temporary basis until alternative premises could be found. The owners
agreed, trade continued from a 10ft sq front room, manned by 26
volunteers, for nearly three years. Using a grant awarded by Community
Action for Hampshire, they installed shopfittings, a freezer, a chiller
and a till - and saw sales leap fivefold. Not only had the villagers
maintained the vital contract with the Post Office, but they were
proving that there was hope for a long-term future for the shop.A
questionnaire sent to every household in the village confirmed that
their was widespread interest in keeping and supporting a new shop and
post office. A village meeting was called, a committee elected and, in
April 1999, the Abbotts Ann Village Shop Association was formed, a
non-profit making organisation to provide and retain a village shop and
post office for the benefit of the villages and surrounding area, as a
community venture.The Association's first job was to find a site. Of
four possible locations, by far the best was an old cob barn in the
centre of the village which a local landowner was prepared to sell for
?73,000. Within months, the Association had raised the funds through a
membership scheme (villagers could "Buy a Brick" for ?10), grants (a
?5000 grant from Test Valley Borough Council was matched by both parish
and county councils), and donations and interest-free loans from
individual villagers. Bought in November 1999, the plot was big enough
to site both the new shop and post office and a separate dwelling to
the rear of the site.Even with the sale of the house and the projected
rental income from the flat to be built over the shop and post office,
the Association faced a hefty bill to realise the overall cost of the
project, estimated at ?300,000. When, in October 2000, a Lottery Grant
application failed, fundraising became a major issue. Once again, the
1000 villagers rose to the occasion, raising ?27,500 in loan offers and
?17,500 in donations between Christmas 2000 and January 2001. In
February 2001, the local council stumped up a further ?25,000 grant,
subject to an updated business plan and a further ?16,000 was raised
through a silent auction. Building began in November and was completed
in August 2002 in time for the shop to be opened in September 2002 by
newsreader Martyn Lewis during the village fete. Today, there is
evidently a real sense of pride and excitement that the village's
achievement has been recognised by the Countryside Alliance award.
Geraldine and Carol pay tribute to the work behind the scenes of the
Village Shop Association committee, which include professional
businessmen, accountants and lawyers: "They give us a lot of help and
it's vital to have expert advice on a project like this as well as the
experience of other village shop associations and organisations such as
the Village Retail Services Association," Geraldine says. As the shop
continues to pay back its interest-free loans, it is clear how much it
relies on goodwill. "We have to keep everyone happy," Carol says. Above
all, a shop needs shoppers. "We worked out that everyone just needs to
spend ?5 a week to keep our heads above water," Geraldine says. So she,
Carol and Linda won't be polishing their haloes for long as they put
their heads together to think "how we can be even better". The latest
innovation is reusable shopping bags emblazoned with the shop logo.
"We're turning Abotts Ann green now," Carol laughs.
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