Hanney Community Shop and Post Office
Hanney Community Shop close to celebrating 20th anniversary
The setting up of community shops might only recently have become a ‘hot’ topic in the media, but some have been up and running successfully for many years – Hanney Community Shop is about to celebrate its twentieth anniversary.
In 1986 the villages of East and West Hanney in Oxfordshire faced all-too-familiar situations when their two village stores closed. A public meeting was called and people from both communities pledged their support and skills to set up a shop in a terrapin building next to the existing village hall. Costs were raised through grants and donations and the shop opened for business in Autumn 1986.
The shop has since relocated to the more secure venue in the village hall and is open six days a week, manned completely by volunteers. It stocks a wide range of groceries and household goods, sweets, stationery, gifts, but the most popular lines are local produce – meat and poultry from two local farms, eggs, honey and surplus from local gardens.
The shop offers many benefits to the village: a convenience store and post office, accessible to all the community, young and old; a place to meet friends and neighbours, find out about local events and to buy tickets for local functions. The shop is run as a not-for-profit organisation and several village charities have benefited from donations from the shop.
Like many retail outlets Hanney has challenges to overcome – ongoing recruitment of volunteers, limited selling space and concerns over the viability of the post office, an essential and integral part of the business as a whole. However, Hanney has overcome difficulties in the past and has the commitment of the community to work hard and take it forward for many years to come.