The Burrow Community Shop and Cafe in Exbourne held a small celebration last week in honour of the shop’s tenth anniversary.

Trustees, volunteers, staff and shoppers attended the event last Wednesday (July 6) to celebrate the hard-won anniversary after the founders worked to establish a community shop following the closure of the original post office closed over twenty years ago.

Sally Hordern, one of the shop’s founders, said: ‘This all started in March 2001 in a village hall, simply because our post office closed and we needed somewhere for the people to go and get their pensions and things like that and it grew from there.

‘There are so many people that we need to thank over all that time and I would just like to say a general thank you to everybody. What we need now is to keep it going.’

Built underground into the side of a hill, the shop has been a success since opening in 2012 and was a lifeline for many in the community during the pandemic, providing residents with a pick-up service for essential goods.

While many in the retail business struggled during the covid pandemic, the Burrow continued to flourish.

Chairman of the trustees, Danny O’Connor, said: ‘We’re running probably 40 per cent more than in 2019 - during covid people shopped more locally and thankfully they’ve stayed with us. So, the last two years have been fabulous.’

The shop is now calling out for more volunteers to help as shopper numbers increase.

Mr O’Connor added: ‘The big problem is more shoppers puts pressure on the volunteer situation. We always struggle for constant volunteers. We would say we’re victims of our own success because we’re trading so well and supplying such a good service more people come to shop and therefore we put pressure on the people who do volunteer.’

This was echoed by Mrs Hordern who said: ‘I would like to get open again on Sundays, but to do that we have got to have more volunteers. If you can’t volunteer yourself, buy a share or ask people to come and volunteer. Come and support us because it is worthwhile.’

Following the closure of the village’s old post office at the end of 2000, Exbourne residents set up a pop-up community shop in the village hall two mornings a week in order to provide people with a place to collect their pensions and buy essentials.

However, volunteers soon found that continually setting and packing up shop was cumbersome and the shop’s success meant it soon outgrew its village hall location.

To resolve the situation a group was set up to look towards finding more permanent accommodation and an underground location was suggested.

In 2006, West Devon Borough Council granted planning permission for the shop.