Brent Knoll Community Shop has issued a £25,000 funding call this week as its plans for a new permanent shop make progress.
Brent Knoll Parish Council has recently confirmed the go-ahead for their re-development of the public toilets to also provide a shell building for the new Community Shop, as first reported here.
That process has revealed that the Community Shop needs to contribute £26,000 towards the council’s costs for providing all the items required to meet building regulations, including wiring, plumbing, woodwork, ironmongery, heating, and solar panels.
A spokesman told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We already have that money, so we’re ready to go! But there is much more that we need to do to make this new shop fit for purpose.”
“This includes providing a proper flooring, instead of just a concrete floor; Providing a new counter; Installing all the shelving we were donated by the closure of the BWOC shop and provision of extra shelving; Arranging the transfer of our fridges, freezer, etc to the new shop; Installing a suspended ceiling to meet energy efficiency standards.”
“If we are to do all these things, we need to raise another £25,000. In truth, we could possibly cope with a concrete floor and dispense with the suspended ceiling, recommended by our shop-fitting experts. However, we also hope that our new permanent shop building will enable us to qualify for restoration of Post Office services, and cutting corners will not help that aim.”
“We have 158 shareholding members, most of whom chose to buy just one £25 share because, at the time, we were not trying to raise money. In 2022, when we first asked for people to buy shares in the shop, it was because we needed a membership, not because we needed to raise money.”
“Now that we know how much we need to raise to complete the shop build, we would encourage existing shareholders to purchase additional shares to help us reach our goal of providing a perfect community shop for the village of Brent Knoll.”
“If every shareholding member now buys more shares, it will make a big dent in that target figure.”
“Or pick up a share application form in the shop. Being a shareholding member means that you are supporting a crucial community asset, securing a vote on everything we do, and being qualified to join our Management Committee.”
See the Brent Knoll Shop shares website here.
