Village shops running to stand still

Sutton's two main general stores are struggling to compete with supermarkets, the Uniform Business Rate and new European legislation. Meanwhile, residents of Farnhill and Kildwick are attempting to buy their post office and village shop and run it as a community venture because no one wants to run it as a business.

The Farnhill and Kildwick Post Office and Village Shop Association was formed after it was announced that owner Michael Hilton intended to retire. Nobody wanted to take the business over.

This gave birth to the idea of it being bought and run by the village.

A working party has been formed, to decide how this should be done, chaired by Pam Swift. Advice is also coming from the Village Retail Stores Association (VRSA), which has supported similar ventures elsewhere in the country. A public meeting of the working party's progress and what is required of the two villages was held last week.

Pam Swift says: "We need to consider becoming an industrial and providence society through this Association raising money to own itself. Through loans, gifts and fundraising, we can minimise commercial borrowing. If we go through commercial borrowing we will have to go through commercial interest rates."

The hope is that every Farnhill and Kildwick resident becomes a member of the Post Office and Village Shop Assoc-iation through paying a £10 membership fee and a contribution to the purchase of the business. The average amount required per household would be £100.

Pam says: "We have come to the possibility that we should buy the shop and flat as they are, with no break between the day that Michael finishes and the day that we take over." The flat would be either sold on short leasehold, or rented out.

The main hurdle is the amount required by the villages to buy the business - calculated to be at least £30,000. Once this is raised, loans, or grant aid can be applied for. So far, the association has £1,300 in a building society account.

Gary McKinney, a member of the working party, says: "Some of the grants available are European ones which have now been allocated. We are in the three-month lull period between grants being allocated and grants being available."

Without the support of the whole village the business is likely to be lost.

But while support is being lobbied, Mr Hilton is having to continue running the post office and shop. He has just had to attend a training course for a new computer system being installed in all post offices.

He warned that anyone taking over would be likely to have to undergo a similar intensive training session.

Dorothy Muir, a representative of VRSA, also attended the meeting. She says: "Every shop which has taken this on has succeeded."

Those present agreed to press ahead with the next stage - visiting every home in the area to find out how much individuals are willing to contribute to the scheme.

Pam says: "I really hope we can say 'yes'. We must go forward and put this village on the map."

Meanwhile, Steve Place, a member of Craven district council and Sutton parish council, also owns Place's Place, a general store in Sutton. He sympathises with the Farnhill and Kildwick cause, but warns that they may be in for a bumpy ride. "I hope they can pull it off," he says. "But I don't think they will have any idea of the workload involved - or cost."

Cllr Place believes the only way his shop has survived is through an injection of lottery funding and keeping up to date with current needs.

He feels problems with changing suppliers have blighted many village stores, which are often driven to providing their own transport to the cash-and-carry. And some have been unable to find the money or staff to do this. Mr Place says: "It will be the final nail in the coffin for a lot of village shops.

"I have been fortunate because we have put every penny we have earned back into the shop for eight years. We have to accept cash cards and Visa cards, which are probably accounting for five per cent of our turnover. We are looking at installing a cash-point machine in the shop.

"I am running as fast as I can to stand still."

Another element - which may affect Farnhill and Kildwick - is European legislation. Landfill Tax means that Cllr Place has to pay a substantial amount of money to have his refuse taken away.

The European Union requirement to convert to metric units has also had an impact. Mr Place says: "I have two perfectly good imperial weighing scales, which have cost £450 each to replace - £900 for two new weighing scales, because some bureaucrat in Brussels says we have to sell everything in grammes."

He also wants more aid to be provided for village shops. "The only help available at the moment is if your village has a population of less than 3,000 and you are the only provider of grocery items in the village," he says. "You can get Uniform Business Rate relief. I'm paying £5,000 UBR - that's not enough to save a shop."

Place's Place is surviving, but further down Sutton's Main Street is A & J Hard-aker Grocers. Owner, David Hardaker, 57, has had his shop on the market for some time, because he wants to retire, his wife is ill and his son does not want to take over the business. He admits times are hard.

"There were more shops at one time," he says. "We are more or less working and paying our overheads. I have seen a reduction in customers - I used to take a lot of orders and that's diminished."

Opening times have also been a problem. While Steve Place can open from 7am to 10pm, seven days a week, Mr Hardaker is running his shop alone, which makes such hours impossible. "Garages are selling groceries now," adds Mr Hardaker. "Everybody is trying to beat the trade by selling everything. There is a lot of pressure on running your own business now."

The Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) works in conjunction with VRSA and continues to lobby for the preservation of the village store. Mary Fraser Hay is the local branch officer.

She says: "The people with the cars that can go to the supermarket are not the majority of the population. The 12-year-old who wants to buy a box of tissues, or the woman with small children, or elderly with poor mobility - all these people use the local shop. If all those and others went to the village shop and spent a tenner a week, it would only take a small outlay to keep it viable." But, she adds, the shop must have a flexible forward-thinking approach and be able to offer what people need.

She is supportive of the Farnhill and Kildwick post office venture. "They are not competing on a level playing field," she says. "But that is the only way to do it - all credit to them. I look forward to that venture with interest."

Opinion, page 10

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