PEOPLE wanting to save their village shop from closure can obtain help from a new online network.

The Community Shops Network was officially launched by Tory MP Oliver Letwin on Friday (12 March).

The website provides access specialist advice to rural residents who want to set up a community-owned shop.

Support includes funding information, legal, financial and retailing advice and answers to Post Office queries.

In recent months, 150 members have signed-up to the network.

Mr Letwin, MP for West Dorset, is a volunteer at Thorncombe Community Shop in his constituency.

Once faced with closure, the shop was purchased by the local parish council before being refurbished and reopened in October 2009.

It is now run through an Industrial & Provident Society (IPS) on behalf of the village community.

Mr Letwin said: “We now have a brilliant village shop but equally as important is how the village has been brought together by this joint endeavour.

“We are building social capital right here in Thorncombe and we need to do the same up and down the country, through community endeavours of every kind.”

Thorncombe is one of over 50 new community-owned shops that have opened following the support of the Village Core Programme.

The programme is managed by the Plunkett Foundation with the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and Co-operative and Community Finance.

Plunkett chief executive Peter Couchman said he believed the network would provide an invaluable service to hundreds more villages.

“We believe that rural communities have the right to try to set up community-owned shops when they are threatened with closure.

“The Community Shops Network will help rural communities to learn from and support each other.”

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