A NEW SHOP BUILDING FOR ALL CANNINGS?

Shops in the Village and Community of All Cannings

There has been a shop in the centre of the village for as long as anyone can remember(with the exception of between 2002 and 2005 after the old Post Office and Shop closed down, and before the community shop opened in December 2005).

After the closure of the old Post Office, there was a huge effort made by many people in the village to bring back a shop as the absence was keenly felt. However, at that time, what was achievable was a shop in a temporary building with  temporary planning permission on a piece of land leased on a short-term basis from the Village Hall. Fifteen years later, we’re still in the same situation.

In order to ensure that there will continue to be a shop serving the village community, we feel it is time to create a permanent shop building with a secure future.

Making that happen will involve another big effort from the village community to secure enough funding to replace the existing building with a new one; one with  permanent planning permission and secure and lasting occupation of the site behind the Village Hall.

A Brief History of the Current Building

The existing shop building started life as a second-hand portacabin that was craned into place.

After three years, a second portacabin was added alongside the first and the side walls were taken out. The resulting larger building then had a metal roof put over the top and pine board cladding added on the outside. That is the building you see today.

There was some guttering fitted to the front, alongside the Village Hall garden, with the rainwater discharging into an open gulley running alongside the end wall. At the front, the rainwater from the porch just empties onto the concrete slabs.

Three years ago, we discovered that part of the original portacabin was quite severely affected by wet rot at the back of the building. This side of the building had no guttering and no cladding. Rain was blowing off the roof and soaking into the wall. This was aggravated by rising damp from the ground with the result that part of the floor structure and the plywood walls were badly rotted.

We replaced the rotten plywood, but the rotten timbers couldn’t be cut out without affecting the structure, so they were cleaned up and left in situ.

Guttering was added to the rear of the shop to reduce the risk of the same problem re-occurring. However, a secondary area of rot has been growing slowly.

We have reached the point where we have to ask whether it is worth the time and effort to keep these two twenty-year-old portacabins going.

Inside, the shop has a sort of dilapidated charm and is at least dry and warm. Sometimes too warm! However, the toilet and kitchen facilities provided for staff are very basic, the office is tiny and the amount of storage space is woefully inadequate.

The ambition

In spite of the problems with the temporary building, the shop’s trading position has is getting stronger and stronger. The trading account posts a modest surplus each year.

So, after fifteen years, we feel it is time to turn the original trial project into a permanent reality which will accurately represent the importance of the shop to the All Cannings village community.

This will require three essential building blocks.

1.    Secure long-term occupation of a site within the village on affordable terms

2.    Permanent planning permission for a shop building

3.    A new fit-for-purpose, low maintenance, low-energy building

We have spent the last year imagining what a new shop would look like. Because of the constraints of the site, it could not be very much bigger. However, there is a significant need to stretch the existing dimensions to create space for:

·         More storage

·         Additional freezer space

·         Space to meet and chat

·         A fully wheelchair-accessible building

How would we achieve this?

We believe that a modular form of construction, which does not require conventional strip foundations and uses prefabricated sections, would mean that a new building could go up in under three months. This would also be less disruptive to those who live near to the Village Hall.

We would aim to keep the shop operating in temporary premises somewhere in the village during the rebuilding process.

We have yet to arrive at an accurate cost for this project, but all in all it is likely to cost more than £250,000.

Paying for it

We will have to raise all the money needed from local fundraising and from securing a number of large grants.

In order to secure grants from the National Lottery or major Charitable Trusts, it will be essential to demonstrate strong support within the local villages for this project. The community fund-raising target will form part of that, but we will also need to carry out surveys. We will also need to collect evidence about how the shop enriches the life of the village and the local community, how it supports those who are vulnerable or isolated and ways in which it provides a much-needed service for those who are dependent on it. The 2020/21 Covid-19 crisis has clearly demonstrated the vital role the shop plays within the community.

We realise this will be a huge task and that it is one we have to accept is not guaranteed success.

We welcome those who would like to come forward to offer time, skills or expertise to help us achieve this objective.

All the money raised or donated will go into a special account reserved for this purpose. If, in the end, we fail to raise enough, the donors will be offered their money back. We will also be looking at the possibility of offering new refundable shares.

We are very excited by the prospect of a new premises for our wonderful community shop. We hope you are, too.

To make a donation or offer help, please send a pledge to Gill Rawlinson, Chairperson, via gillsplace85@gmail.com

ALL CANNINGS COMMUNITY SHOP - UPDATE ON THE PROJECT TO REBUILD THE SHOP - May 2022

PROGRESS.

The committee has explored all possibilities for a new site in the surrounding area. We have concluded and committed to redevelop a new building on the exisiting area.

The Design.

We need to choose a method of construction which allows the building to go up fast. This means:

·         Less time for the shop to be out of operation and losing income.

·         A shorter time scale for noise and other disruption to neighbouring properties.

·         Less construction traffic.

Our target is for the old building to be demolished and removed and the new building completed within three months.

A key issue is how best to fit the new building on the site available to us. We are currently examining options that will make better use of the space behind the shop.

The new building will need to offer more internal space than the existing building, but our aim is that visually it should not look any more prominent.

The experience of running the shop over the last year has brought home the realisation that we have completely inadequate storage space. The trend has been for our grocery suppliers to increase their minimum order size and deliver to us on palettes. The storeroom is just not big enough to receive this amount of stock and store it in a way that is safe for our staff and volunteers to move about the shop.

There are other considerations which will have an impact on the village such as the siting of any temporary shop premises, storage of stock and equipment, the building method, building materials storage and more.

Planning Application

In order to be able to afford to commission a new building, we will need to raise a large amount of money. This could take a considerable amount of time and so it is not possible to put a timescale on when we would be in a position to proceed.

However, we believe we will stand the best chance of attracting funds if we have a project that already has planning permission.

We need a permanent permission for a new building. At the moment we only have a temporary permission that lasts until summer 2023. A permanent permission is likely to require higher standards all round and there may well be new conditions that we need to comply with.

Complaints made by some residents about the level of traffic generated by the shop and the Milk Hut being together has delayed progress towards an application. We need the full support of the village before we can move on.

Raising the funds

We have already had donations amounting to over £1,000, for which we are very grateful. In 2021 we have received grants from Wiltshire Council’s Devizes Community Area Board, the Samuel William Farmer Trust and the Arnold Clark Foundation. We are grateful to them all. The shop management committee has also been building up a reserve fund from surpluses made in recent years.