please empty your brain below
That's a sad story. Very wrong indeed.

Jag | Homepage | 01.12.07 - 9:36 a.m. | #

1. Can't they apply for a small business loan? If this shop is to be sustainable it will need to make a profit anyway.

2. There would be plenty of money for projects like these, but a lot is being diverted to the Olympics in your new 'village'.

Kevinho | 01.12.07 - 11:48 a.m. | #

That's the most obnoxious thing about these phone vote things. They present us with a collection of causes, each more worthy than the last, and then effectively tell the losing ones to sod off. Or fall down - I worked on a building that didn't quite win the vote on BBC's Restoration programme, so its a very sore point.

And yes, a lot of money that could be used usefully is being poured into the bloody Olympics.

Alyx | 01.12.07 - 11:53 a.m. | #

You perfectly highlight the problem - in such rural areas as this (and where I live), there is no safe option but to use a car. And at £1.08 per litre of diesel, that's fast becoming a luxury for many people on low or average incomes.

But still the 'Government' heaps more and more tax on the motorist. Vehicle fuel is 3 times the price in this country it is in America, and much more than most other countries in Europe.

I never take the car out for just one purpose. I always think, "If I had to get a bus - were one available - to go there, would I?" if the answer is "no" then most of the time I don't go.

I am as green as I can possibly be (solar panels, wood burner, using greywater, growing own food etc etc), but the price of fuel when I have no alternative, and my tax and fuel tax is being used to subsidise the movements of people in areas of good public transport makes me very cross.

I'm sure there are many ways in which the problem of transport in the countryside could be solved (officially set-up share-a-ride schemes for a start), but it seems that it's stick, stick, stick, and not even a field to grow carrots, let alone carrots being given out.

And before anyone says, "Ah but you have a choice, you could live in a town!" can I just say that that is side-stepping the real issue.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 01.12.07 - 11:53 a.m. | #

If this shop is to be sustainable it will need to make a profit anyway.

Grrrr. It's not that simple. That's *exactly* the argument that's been used to close Post Offices in rural communities. Tax money is used to subsidise/provide many things in towns. It's time that the same logic was applied to rural communities.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 01.12.07 - 11:57 a.m. | #

I also grew up in Suffolk, and my family are all still there.. The same has happened in so many of the Suffolk Villages, and its the elderly who are hardest hit by it. Many can't drive, and relied on the local shops and post offices for their provisions - and social contact on a dail basis. I look at my Mums village. Its beautiful, quiet.. but not a single shop since two Tescos opened 7 miles away. The post office closed 9 years ago when half the village it seems was snapped up for "weekend homes", and two more large supermarkets opened in the area. They are lucky, there are 2 buses a day into the local town, and from there buses can be got to Ipswich.

You're right. Country living really isn't "green" anymore..

(And I'm sorry your village didn't get the money. I remember when the BBC had that show giving money to rescue old buildings a couple of years back. They featured the radar station at Bawdsey, which is where my Dad worked when he met my Mum. I was so sad to not see it win)

Fimb | Homepage | 01.12.07 - 12:08 p.m. | #

The frequently-heard argument
"We shouldn't be spending money on X,
we should spend it on Y instead"
always really annoys me. Because Government spending just doesn't work that way.

Even if London hadn't won the Olympics, my old village would still be shop-less.

I think it's a shame we can't have both.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 01.12.07 - 4:44 p.m. | #

*wonders if money wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan could have been put to better use*

Blue Witch | Homepage | 01.12.07 - 6:18 p.m. | #

Wonder if any Govt Minister has lost their village store or Post Office???

Thought not...

Anonymous | 01.12.07 - 6:42 p.m. | #

What about a community response, keeping it a bit "informal"?

Order bread, milk, ham, etc, via the internet, delivered to the little "shop" 3 times a week. The shop could utilise the same labour that the charity shops use, i.e. volunteer-dears for half a day at a time. The shop need only open for short periods of time.

Don't tell any officials about it, and if an inspector comes round, the response is "What shop?"
Just a thought.

And the traffic problem? I know of places where some clever locals put up a sign warning of a low bridge and a sharp turn on a road, allegedly making it unsuitable for long vehicles. It reduced truck through traffic by about 80\\%.

flashgordonnz | 01.12.07 - 7:41 p.m. | #

I bet shedloads of salaries/pensions come into this, and villages throughout the land. But the one certainty is that people choose (if they have the choice) their bank balance over community. Sad for the people who have lived all their lives in villages, but really, is there any point now in moving to or living in the country? Oh yes there is, to escape other people, to read the Daily Mail in peace and to park one's cars securely. Yes,very sad.

Incidentally, I think the well-respected and long established bus firm of Chambers of Bures is not exactly rattling, though their Guy Arabs many years ago might have been.

felix | 01.12.07 - 10:17 p.m. | #

I am from an extremely similar 500 people village in north Essex, so this story really resonated with me. I spent my teenage years desperate to get out. I went to university and now I live in London. I visit, and I miss the quiet and the open landscape. My parents and my brother still live there, but there is no way I will ever go and live there again. It would mean that things were going very badly for me if I moved back there. There is no job for me, even in the nearest town (I work in botany). I went everywhere by car for the first 18 years of my life. The Post Office, by the way, was initially in an old house, then in a corner of a garden centre just off the main Colchester-Halstead road, then the garden centre became a "business centre" and the Post Office got a tiny room of its own, then about 10 years ago it closed down altogether. The nearest shop is 3 miles away, down country roads where people drive at 60 miles per hour. Everyone drives to out-of-town supermarkets.

Laura | Homepage | 02.12.07 - 8:09 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy