THE village of Cheriton Fitzpaine is proud to announce that its Community Shop has been built, and is ready to open.

The whole project started in the Autumn of 2016 with a “What if…” thought from recently-retired Elly Babbedge, who wondered if a Community shop could be set up to take the place of the village shop and Post Office, due to close that December. “To be honest,” she said, “I knew that the day would come when I might not be able to drive, and although people are very friendly here, I would feel uncomfortable relying on others to take me shopping to Crediton or Tiverton. Alright for a big shop I suppose, but if I ran out of milk or needed a greetings card, it would never happen.”

She entered into talks with Bink Caven, landlady of “The Ring of Bells” to explore the concept of “the hub in the pub” but although things looked possible for a moment, the premises were not really suitable for a grocery store and Post Office.

“Binka has remained a loyal supporter of the project, however and when we started distributing newspapers as ‘the shop’ she kindly let us use the hay barn next to the pub for this.

“It was very cold in the winter months but it got people circulating again and neighbours liked getting out for their newspapers and the all-important chat.”

The motto coined for the project was that it was to be a shop “for the people and by the people”.

The story has been closely followed by “Courier”, reporting on the hosted Post Office that was set up twice a week in the Parish Hall; on the village meeting held in atrocious weather conditions to drum up support for the project; on the parish questionnaire to test out what people really wanted; on the sometimes fruitless search for a suitable place to establish a shop – no fewer than 13 sites were explored; on the support given by The Plunkett Foundation on how to launch a share offer; on the Tesco Bags of Help blue token collection; on the competition for local school children to provide a shop logo, on the turf-cutting ceremony in January this year featuring several nonagenarians, and most recently, on an invitation to Buckingham Palace for the shop treasurer and newspaper organiser Barbara Draper in celebration of an award from the Prince’s Countyside Fund. And now, Kevin Boddy, has been appointed as the new shop manager for the Cheriton Fitzpaine Community Shop.

Other generous funding has come from Real Devon, the Devon County Council Locality Fund, Tesco, and Awards for All (Big Lottery).

Throughout it all Cheriton Fitzpaine Parish Council and the villagers themselves have been truly supportive.

The project now has 177 shareholders and several people who have donated money and endless hours of their time to the project.

Saturday, May 12 sees the Grand Opening of the community shop.

A local celebrity will cut the ribbon at 2pm and the event will be followed by a cream tea, for all, with donations to the Methodist Chapel, on whose land the shop has been built.

All shareholders will then learn whether they have been lucky enough to receive one of the donated prizes, collected by Jill Holden on behalf of the group.

Most community shops take between five and eight years to set up and open but the Cheriton Fitzpaine community is to be roundly congratulated on completing its project in little more than 18 months.