South Zeal’s ‘Save Our Stores’ campaign is now working on the next step in setting up the local store as a community-owned shop, it was reported in the South Tawton Parish Council’s latest meeting.

Campaign organisers are now developing a business plan for the shop and drafting a funding document to highlight the need to sell as many community shares as possible in order to receive match grant funding from the Community Shares Booster Fund, which funds community shares projects.

Following the announcement in November last year that the owner of South Zeal’s local shop, The Stores, was planning on retiring, residents banded together to save the shop from closure by setting it up as a community-owned shop.

Fears intensified when a planning application was submitted which proposed turning the building into a residential property. Residents worried that the closure would be detrimental for those in the community as the next nearest shop is in Sticklepath which would mean a long walk up a steep hill for those who cannot drive. There were also concerns that the shop’s closure would result in the loss of a vital community space as the village hall is often inaccessible due to lorries blocking the car park and has been the target of vandalism in the past.

A community-owned store would mean that shoppers have the potential to purchase community-holding shares, meaning that the shares never change value no matter the economic climate, and all profits would go back into the community.