UK: Community ownership aims to halt decline in village shops

During recent years many shops in small villages in the UK have closed. There are now many villages in the UK without a single shop. The exception to this trend is where members of the local community have come together to run the local shop themselves. Now the Village Retail Shop Association (ViRSA), in partnership with the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Co-operative and Community Finance, has announced the launch of a new programme which will provide £2m (2.8m euro) of start-up funding to new community-owned shops over the next three years. The new programme will award grants to villages of at least 200 people which are planning to set up a community-owned shop. Start-up packages will comprise a grant of up to £20,000, complemented by a similar contribution from the community and a loan of at least the same amount from Co-operative and Community Finance. A network of ViRSA community retail advisers will be on hand to guide residents through everything from finding premises to preparing a business plan and raising finance. With several thousand rural settlements in Britain potentially suitable for community-owned shops, the possible social impact is considerable. www.virsa.org