NEARLY 100 people attended a public meeting in St Teath recently, discussing the future of the village shop and post office.

On the evening of June 27, a meeting, called and chaired by St Teath’s Cornwall Councillor, Dominic Fairman, gave residents the opportunity to discuss the future of their village shop and post office.

St Teath’s village shop has provided a number of services to residents, allowing people to find out about things going on in the village, enquiring after local people, keep up-to-date on developments and projects in St Teath, pick up medical prescriptions, amongst other things.

The village newsletter, St Teath Timepiece, has described the facility as something that provides ‘all the things which oil the wheels of daily life’.

However, with the growth of supermarkets, many village shops have had to face uncertain times ahead, with the current owners, Steve and Lynne, who are now hoping to retire, having extended their opening hours and post office services.

Cllr Fairman told the meeting: “Back in May, it was brought to my attention that the village store had been on the market for over a year, and that the owners — Steven and Lynn — were concerned that they had had little or no interest shown in it.

“They hope to formally retire in early 2018, and if a buyer for the business did not come forward, this could put the future of the shop and post office in jeopardy.”

The packed hall listened attentively to two local guest speakers. Firstly, Denis Lusby who, with his wife Christine, has owned and run the village store in St Breward for the last 23 years.

He spoke about his experience in taking over the post office two years ago, when this separate business closed next door to his own shop.

Shortly after, the couple put the newly combined business on the market with a view to retirement and had very little interest from prospective buyers wishing to purchase the building.

Denis is also the chair of the parish council and talks were held around the possibility of opening a community shop in the village — however, a suitable viable location could not be found. Ultimately, a satisfactory solution came forward from the landlord of the Old Inn, who offered to convert his garages to a new shop and post office for the village.

Although the new location is not as central to the village, this move has been greeted with overwhelming support from the residents, and the community bus has began to offer a new route around the village to enable the new shop to be accessible to all.

After the meeting, Denis said: “Christine and I would be happy to advise any shop committee on what to stock, merchandising, etcetera. Both of us believe that a village shop is essential for a community’s wellbeing.”

The second speaker was Len Croney from Blisland, who is the current chair of the village community shop. This project has been running now for well over ten years, but recently hit a financial crisis, and required an emergency rescue committee to understand the problems and try and restore the finances to order.

This has now been achieved, but there remain difficulties around servicing debts, managing cashflow and attracting enough volunteers to extend the shop’s opening hours.

Len gave the audience a frank and honest insight into the challenges of keeping a village community store up and running, and gave the village an open offer of ongoing support, should this be something that the people of St Teath would be interested in pursuing.

After a number of questions and an open discussion amongst the public, Cllr Fairman brought the meeting to a close.

He said: “I would like to hear from anyone in the village who would be interested in setting up a committee to explore the idea of a community shop. Otherwise, I think that it has been important to raise public awareness of the issue, and there may be potential solutions from other businesses or from local development in the village.”

To find out more or get involved, contact Cllr Fairman directly on 07939 122303 or email [email protected]