Blockley Village Shop could be best in Britain (From Cotswold Journal)

Blockley Village Shop could be best in Britain

1:08pm Wednesday 27th January 2010

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BLOCKLEY’S village shop could soon be crowned the best in Britain.

Blockley Village Shop and Café has won the Best Village Shop category in the Wessex region of the 2009 Countryside Alliance Awards.

Manager, Chris Grimes, along with three members of his staff, will now attend the national finals at the House of Lords on Wednesday, February 3 to find out if their community-run shop has become national champion.

They do not know who nominated the shop for the award.

The staff did not know their shop had been entered into the competition until last autumn when the alliance sent them a window sticker saying they had been nominated.

A mystery shopper, from the alliance, inspected the shop in December.

The alliance telephoned the shop shortly afterwards to announce it had won the regional heat.

Blockley’s residents formed Blockley Cooperative Association Limited, in 2008, to run the store after the previous village shop/post office closed along with many other post offices throughout Britain.

They generated more than £60,000, through fund-raising and obtaining grants, to finance the new shop that officially opened on May Day 2008.

Chris is the only full-time member of staff.

He is helped by about 15 part-time members of staff, including two assistant managers.

The store sells newspapers and magazines, groceries, hot food and home-made sandwiches.

It also boasts a café, children’s nursery and an Outreach post office, which is available from 9.30am to 2.30pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Chris said: “It would be great to win.

“We support the community and the community supports us.

“Being the hub of the community - that’s been the key to it.”

The annual awards, now in their fifth year, celebrate the characters, skills, traditions and enterprise of the countryside through the people involved.

This year’s awards attracted a record 2,500 nominations from the public.

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