EXBOURNE’S unique underground community shop, café and post office, The Burrow, has been crowned a winner in the Rural Community Co-operative Awards 2017, the only national awards programme recognising community co-operation around the UK.

The shop won the Community Co-operative of the Year Award in the South West region, from The Plunkett Foundation. Customers, volunteers and supporters came together to celebrate the win at a special event on Wednesday, March 14.

Since it opened in July 2012, The Burrow has become a focal point for many in Exbourne and the surrounding area. As well as selling everything from bread and milk to a full English breakfast, it’s become a place where people come together, helping to reduce isolation and loneliness.

Like many places in the region, the Exbourne parish is a rural and isolated area with a large number of retired people.

The shop has helped new friendships develop, often across the generations. The Burrow offers special pensioners’ meals, children’s meals and caters for all the community.

Working with SSAFA, the shop also holds a monthly regular breakfast/lunches for ex-service personnel, some of whom have become increasingly isolated due to the closing down of local Royal British Legion Branches.

The Rural Community Co-operative Awards are run by Plunkett Foundation, the national charity supporting people to set up and run community co-operatives – businesses that are owned and run democratically by large numbers of people from within their local area – to help overcome issues ranging from isolation and loneliness to poverty.

Sally Hordern, company secretary of Exbourne and Jacobstowe Community Association said: ‘I’m extremely pleased because the award recognises what we do in the community. We keep an eye on people in the village, if anyone has a problem we can try and help. We’re an open house for the elderly and for the vunerable. Everyone gets to know everyone through the shop.’

Steve Blakeman, chairman of Exbourne and Jacobstowe Parish Council said: ‘The shop really is a great asset to the village, it keeps the village alive and I think The Plunkett Foundation has recognised that with this award.’

The Exbourne and Jacobstowe Community Association Ltd competed with shortlisted entries and was crowned the best community owned co-operative in the South West.  The winners were announced at a national ceremony in London to an invited audience of over 100 special guests from around the UK.

James Alcock, general manager at Plunkett Foundation said: ‘The winners of the Rural Community Co-operative Awards all represent fantastic examples of community enterprise.

‘The award nominations clearly demonstrated community co-operatives at the top of their game; all the winners truly deserve this accolade. We wish them all every success for the future.’

Community co-operatives come in many forms: shops, pubs, bakeries, farms, community hubs, woodlands, broadband projects – the list is endless. They are a business, but trade primarily for the benefit of the local community. Like any business, a community co-operative must be profitable.

Due to their focus on the local community, and investing profits back into the business or local area, they are able to succeed where other commercial ventures may fail. For example, around 400 commercial village shops close each year and in the region of 21 pub closures a week.Community-owned shops and co-operative pubs not only represent a better form of business, they directly respond to some of the key challenges facing rural communities today such as lack of services and isolation.