By RUTH LOGNONNE ruth.lognonne@hexham-courant.co.uk

Last updated at 10:35, Friday, 03 April 2009

PEOPLE power is set to save Humshaugh’s village shop.

Steering group: From the left, front row: Judith Taylor, Michael Binks, Dick Moules, Ray Blanckley and Steve Robins. Missing from the picture is Derek Addison.

The North Tyne community faced losing the facility when shopkeepers Pat and Rob Gray announced they were considering retirement.

However, after a public meeting in Humshaugh Village Hall last Thursday, villagers voted unanimously to set up their own community shop.

The idea of a community-run shop in Humshaugh has been mooted ever since the village store lost its post office at the start of the year.

The survival of the shop has been a growing concern with the planned retirement of Mr and Mrs Gray.

The steering group that tried to save the post office asked local people to consider a community shop as one of the options for the store if Mr and Mrs Gray decided against selling it.

A questionnaire was distributed in the Humshaugh and Wall area to see what people thought.

An impressive 72 per cent of the questionnaires distributed were returned and the results were analysed ready for the meeting.

Results showed that over 95 per cent of people who completed the questionnaire were in favour of a community shop.

On top of that, 45 people said they would help run the shop as volunteers if it were to go ahead, and over 100 people would offer financial help through buying shares in the new shop.

One of the men behind the scheme is former Kimberly-Clark mill manager and ex-Corbridge Larder boss Dick Moules, who lives in Humshaugh.

He said: “We decided it would be better to explore the community shop possibility now rather than wait to see if Rob and Pat decided to sell.

“If they failed to find a buyer we wanted to be in a position to save the shop and avoid forfeiture of the lease.”

The idea of a community shop for Humshaugh and Wall proved attractive, not just on the back of the questionnaire results, but also through the large turnout on Thursday night.

“Through talking to Pat and Rob we know that a community shop would be favourable to them,” added Mr Moules. “We needed to see how people felt about it and it’s clear after tonight’s meeting that our residents want this to happen.”

Tony Kirsopp, from Social Enterprise Northumberland, was on hand to talk about structures, help that is available and the next steps in running a community shop.

“A sustainable business plan will need to be in place in order for the shop to operate long term,” said Mr Kirsopp.

“It takes commitment for these things to work. The village will need a strong network of volunteers that are willing to work not only in the shop but in sorting out produce, deliveries and, of course, manage the book work.

“There are two community run shops in Shilbottle and Linton, both of which we helped launch initially, but who are now totally independent.

“We helped start them up some years ago and now we are not involved because the villagers run it on their own.

“The best community groups all have very committed volunteers and a lot of them.”

The current Humshaugh steering group, which has reached the end of its remit, asked if a new group could be formed to start plans for the community shop. This was decided at the meeting and a new one has been set up.

First published at 09:49, Friday, 03 April 2009
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk