After months of anticipation, the villagers of Ambridge in BBC Radio 4’s The Archers have celebrated the opening of their community-owned shop. In setting up their own shop, they have followed a path chosen by an increasing number of rural communities across the UK, many of whom are so empowered by their success that they’re going on to create more community-owned enterprises such as pubs, local food schemes and broadband services.
The storyline on The Archers, which the Plunkett Foundation has been advising on, began in October in a way that would be familiar to many rural communities. The shop owner, Peggy Woolley, could no longer afford to run the shop and announced to villagers to their great dismay that the shop would be closing. The community decided to not take the threat of closure lying down and set about raising funds for a community-owned shop.
Peter Couchman, Chief Executive of the Plunkett Foundation, said, “The community-owned shop storyline on The Archers has mirrored the journey taken by an increasing number of rural communities across the UK in setting up and running community-owned services. We hope that for Ambridge, this is just the start as we have found that after communities go through the process of setting up and running a community-owned shop they then apply this approach to a range of other challenges they are facing. Our question is what is next for Ambridge?”
Greg Clark, Minister of Decentralisation has also offered his congratulations to the village of Ambridge.
"I'd like to congratulate the people of Ambridge for taking the initiative and successfully saving the hub of the village! There are real people doing similar things all over the country. This Government wants to make it easier for communities to help one another and improve their local area. We’ll be giving new powers to help them save local facilities that are facing closure. I hope many more communities will feel inspired to take charge of the things that are important to them."
Only time will tell whether the residents of Ambridge set up more community-owned enterprises to improve village life but, as villages across the UK are discovering, community enterprise can provide a sustainable solution to many of the issues affecting them such as access to public transport, childcare facilities broadband and local food. The possibilities for community enterprise to meet the needs of villages such as Ambridge are endless.
Dr Stuart Burgess, the Government's Rural Advocate emphasises the importance and power of community action. “The opening of the community-owned shop on the Archers is a powerful portrayal of the importance of village services. The capacity of rural people to pull together to ensure vital amenities continue to be available is something I have seen on many occasions as part of my regular visits to rural communities.”
For press and media enquiries, please contact Elizabeth of Mar on elizabethofmarpr@yahoo.co.uk or 07870 276 375
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NOTES TO EDITORS:
The Plunkett Foundation (www.plunkett.co.uk) is a national organisation based in Woodstock, Oxfordshire that helps rural communities through community-ownership to take control of the issues important to them. The Plunkett Foundation runs a range of projects and services supporting rural communities to set up and successfully run community-owned enterprises including community-owned shops. The Plunkett Foundation hosts an online Community Shops Network (www.plunkett.uk.net) for community-owned shops to share ideas and best practice.
The Village CORE Programme (http://www.plunkett.co.uk/whatwedo/core/Core.cfm) was launched in 2006 as a three year support programme for community-owned shops but was extended for a further three years to meet demand. The programme is managed by the Plunkett Foundation in partnership with the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (http://www.esmeefairbairn.org.uk/) and Co-operative and Community Finance (http://www.co-opandcommunityfinance.coop/) and is supported by the LankellyChase Foundation (http://www.lankellychase.org.uk/). It provides financial start-up packages and advisory support to communities looking to set up a community-owned rural shop.
Community-ownership now saves around 10% of village shop closures and is the approach that rural communities now turn to first when looking to save their village shop from the threat of closure. There are 237 community-owned shops in the UK with 38 opening in 2009 alone. They come in all shapes and sizes depending on the needs of the community which sets them up. Some (as is the case in Ambridge) are in previous shop premises while others are based in churches, pub buildings, village halls and portacabins.
The Ambridge shop has ‘received’ support from the Village CORE Programme and had it been a real shop, it would have been the 50th shop to be supported under the programme. The 50th shop will actually be in Kirdford, West Sussex, which opens three days after the Ambridge shop.