Why the Freshford Shop Project?
The owners of the Freshford village shop and post office – having served the village faithfully for over 20 years – announced last year that they want to sell up and retire. They actually closed the village shop and post office at the end of June 2007 and hope to sell the shop building for residential use. The Freshford Shop Project – an action group of Freshford and Limpley Stoke residents – have been working for some 18 months now to explore how a community shop and post office can be set up to replace it.
A community shop would employ a paid full-time manager, but much of the extra work – keeping the shop open for longer hours, helping to plan and decide what the shop should stock, procuring interesting extra goods and services which would be sold in the shop – would be done by village volunteers.
People want a community shop
It all started with a public meeting in April 2006 in the School Hall, which was well and enthusiastically attended. You can view the presentation given that evening by clicking here.
The key purpose of the meeting was to gauge public support for the shop – without which the exercise was doomed to failure. The group asked people to commit to a certain amount of spending each month for two years - IF the community shop with post office could be made to happen, offering all the goods and services promised in the presentation.
The response was good – the Group collected commitments from 110 Freshford and Limpley Stoke households, adding up to over £5000’s spending per month. They feel that, once a realistic plan for a community shop emerges, additional commitments would be forthcoming - but this was a very promising start. In fact, if you wish to complete one of those forms now – You can either fill it out online, or download the form, complete it and send it to us at the address below. The form also invites you to offer other types of help.
In addition to committing to a certain amount of monthly spending, residents also signed up for taking turns in minding the shop, and some offered capital contributions towards a community shop, once a promising plan was put before them.
Funding – and a business plan
The Freshford Shop Project set about looking for ways of making it all happen. They researched other community shops in the area. There’s Wellow, nearby, which has been up and running for over ten years. There’s Bathford which started up in 2006; and there are many others within reach where we have visited and collected advice and information. ViRSA, the Village Retail Shop Association, has been a useful source of information and help. The Freshford Shop Project Group published a progress report in June 2006, outlining how it might all work. This included a business plan.
The Group also identified sources of loans and grants available for this kind of project, and organised one fundraising event, a village supper in the School Hall, which raised £1100. Others will follow.
Buying the building
By May this year, the Group still thought that buying the existing building was a good way forward. The Group had planned to purchase the PO building, split out the accommodation above the shop (a two-bedroom maisonette) and sell it off, and refurbish the ground floor and basement for the shop. This plan stalled over the asking price for the shop – which was pitched at residential use rather than shop use.
A further blow – when the closure of the shop and post office was announced in May 2007 – was being told by Post Office Ltd that, once the current post office had closed, they would only allow a very part-time post office to re-open. This would have serious financial consequences for the shop’s business plan, with a major part of the sub-postmaster’s salary missing.
Given the limited size of the existing shop, the plan to keep the shop where it was had to be abandoned.
A village centre new build
Freshford Shop Project had also been looking at the possibility of a Bath developer buying the Post Office building and attached cottage as well as the surgery building, then re-arranging all those buildings and creating a new unit in the village centre, making it available not only for a good-sized shop but also the surgery, thereby providing it with the desired level access. The existing buildings would then have been sold off again for residential use.
However, this plan also failed over the asking price of the existing PO building, as well as adverse developments in construction costs. Obviously, planning permission - in the centre of the conservation area - would have been a further significant hurdle.
Freshford Shop Project felt that waiting it out was not an option. With the shop closing, they sensed that residents wanted their replacement community shop soon. They also risked just running out of steam if progress could not be made in the near future.
Three alternative sites
So the Freshford Shop Project abandoned the idea of retaining or rebuilding the village shop on the High Street and revisited all the options for alternative locations in the village. They came up with three:
1 – Converting and extending the barn by Freshford Inn2 – A new timber building next to the Village Hall, in a strip of the neighbouring field, and
3 – the flat above the surgery in the surgery building, round the corner from the shop. Click here for more detail about these options.
All had planning hurdles to jump, and all would be expensive. But with full village support, the Freshford Shop Project felt a solution will be possible.
The Freshford Shop Project displayed these options at the June Village Fete and collected comments. The new timber building next to the Village Hall was by far the most popular, and that is what the Group are now working towards.
The Group also noted concerns expressed about any greenfield planning application setting a precedent for other, less desirable, developments and will ensure that such concerns are addressed, should the new-build option succeed.Planning application
The plans were on view at the Parish Plan meeting on 21st November 2007 where they received full support from everyone present. An outline planning application was made on 29th November. You can see the application here. You can also comment on the application from here. Please do! The application goes against the Local Plan as the field is in the green belt and the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. We need to give the planners and the planning committee a good basis for approving it anyway, in the interests of community amenity. Some 500 households stand to benefit from the shop - so we feel we need at least 100 supporting comments. The formal consultation period ends on 24th December 2007. But even letters received after that are still reported to the councillors at the planning committee meeting where the application is to be decided,so comments after that date are still useful.
See also Vilage News.Temporary post office above the surgery
Meanwhile, Freshford Shop Project wanted to maintain at least a part-time post office service in the village. Post Office Ltd promised to arrange for a sub-postmaster from elsewhere to serve the village for two mornings a week if the Group could provide a suitable venue. Such a venue was found - it is the flat above the surgery in the Younghusband building, just a few steps around the corner from the existing shop. The Younghusband Trust, a charity which owns the surgery building, very generously made the first floor of that building available for this purpose.
After two months of preparations and a great deal of hard work from members of the Freshford Shop Project, the temporary part-time post office started operating in September. Opening hours are Tuesdays and Fridays from 9 am to 1 pm. Volunteers are offering coffee and biscuits to any customers and it has proven a successful social venue. Cards and calendars are also for sale, and customers can make further suggestions in a COMMENTS BOOK.
Click here to see a picture of the temporary Post Office.
One drawback: there are seven steps down and another eleven steps up to the level which the temporary PO will be on. This is not ideal. But the Group feel it will do temporarily, and are determined to find ways of helping those who might find the steps difficult.
Please also have a look at Village News
We hope to keep this page up to date - but we don't always manage. Be sure also to check the Village News page for the most recent developments.
Who are we?
Current members of the Freshford Shop Project Action Group:
Andy Barrs
Gitte Dawson
Hugh Delap
John Ager
Malcolm Shirley
Peter King
René Closuit
Trevor McCurdie
Contact us at Hillside Farm, Church Lane, Freshford, Bath BA2 7WD
Tel 01225 722 511
Email freshfordshop.project@gmail.com
Comments always welcome!
also Village