The campaign to save Rushlake Green Village Shop

About this website
This is the website that was created as part of the campaign to retain a shop for the community of Rushlake Green Village and the surrounding areas. For up to date news and information about the village, including the shop, go to www.rushlakegreenvillage.co.uk

The campaign reached a happy resolution when, in October 2008, Daws Stores was sold to new owners.

We have preserved this website more or less as it was on the eve of the auction. We hope this gives those interested an insight into the way the campaign successfully harnessed a body of community support and acted as a voice for concerns and hopes for the shop, and for the community’s future.

The right-hand menu has links to the newsletters that give a blow-by-blow account of the campaign as it developed and the left-hand menu provides access to pages that summarise the rationale and ideas for a community shop.

Here is the story of the campaign:

Lionel decides to sell-up
The village campaign was born when the plans to sell the shop began to emerge. Everyone understood Lionel Daw’s reasons for wanting to retire. He had devoted almost his entire life to the shop, as had generations of his family before him, and all of us were aware of the toll this arduous routine had taken on his health. But with Lionel’s retirement came uncertainty about the shop’s future.

The campaign group is born
In response to widespread concern within the community, in spring 2008 a small Campaign Group of local residents was formed and began investigating ways to ensure the future of the shop. When it became clear that there was a real danger that the shop could close, even if sold, the group began to look at routes for the community to act together to keep the shop open.

A community shop?
One clear possibility, which had been successful elsewhere, was the idea of creating a Community Shop, owned by the community for the community. A look on the web showed that over 180 shops around the country had been saved from extinction in this way by local residents. Alan Wyle and the team from Action in rural Sussex were a great help in the early stages - offering help, advice and contacts.

Overwhelming support for a shop
The Campaign Group organised a survey of residents’ views. This showed that 100% felt it was important that Rushlake Green “continues to have a shop” and 99% felt the village would “suffer if it lost its shop”.

Early in August, a village meeting was organised to explore the options for action to protect the shop. Over 160 residents attended and the meeting concluded with an overwhelming vote in support of exploring the potential for the community to take on the shop itself, if no suitable buyer could be found.

A business plan – just in case . . .
In the period that followed, the Campaign Group developed a comprehensive business plan that would enable the community to step in if no buyer emerged at the auction. The plans included ideas, contributed by residents, for developing the services of the shop. These plans were presented at two further village meetings, and residents were invited to become actively involved by joining the ‘Rushlake Green Community Group’ – a group created specifically to take action to save the shop.

Keeping in touch
In addition to the village meetings, the Campaign Group kept local residents informed and involved through a website and through regular newsletters which were distributed via email and by village volunteers who printed-out newsletters at home and delivered them by hand to their neighbours.

Lending a hand
The campaign brought out the best in local people, all of whom felt strongly that a local shop was central to the strength of the community. Many residents came forward offering help and support. One local couple delivered 70 copies of the newsletter each week to outlying areas of the parish. Other volunteers included a local architect who drew up detailed plans for the shop and a local designer who created the website and the campaign logo. And in a final effort, leading up to the auction in October, teams of volunteers spent their weekends going door to door, encouraging people in the surrounding areas to support the shop by joining the Community Group. All supported by a vigorous poster campaign, again installed around the village by volunteers.

The final signal of commitment
By the eve of the auction in early October nearly 300 local residents had joined the community group, and made an initial £25 commitment to support any action that might be needed if the shop failed to sell – or was sold to a buyer not interested in keeping the shop open. And beyond this, many local residents had offered loans and donations of significant sums, if buying or leasing the shop became the only way to keep the shop open.

The reprieve
But the Campaign Group’s hope had always been that a local buyer would be found who would want to keep the shop going and have ambitions to give it a lasting future for the local residents. So it was with great delight and relief that the community learned of the successful sale of the property to a Sussex family, keen to run and grow the shop. The Group was also pleased to learn that the new owners had been following the mounting groundswell of community support for the shop through the Rushlake Green Village Shop website.

The Rushlake Green effect
What this potential crisis proved is that there is such a thing as community spirit and that the Parish of Warbleton and Rushlake Green has local residents who are willing to fight to preserve the things that keep their community together and serve the needs of dependent local people.

The signed up members of the campaign came from a wide area around the village, including many from nearby villages that had already lost their shops. All recognised that the unique friendliness and neighbourliness of Rushlake Green was in part kept alive by having a shop at the centre of village life. And the campaign itself brought people together, created new friendships and made people even more aware of the unique value of this place, where people care enough to get involved and take action together.

Campaign facts
1,250 newsletters delivered by hand, by local volunteers

More than 500 visits to the website

289 Paid up Community Group members

141 people answered the survey

100% felt it was important that Rushlake Green “continues to have a shop”

99% felt the village would “suffer if it lost its shop”

More than 50 locals actively involved through the campaign group, distribution, canvassing and offering services for free. Many more offering support.

3 village meetings held, each attracting a significant cross section of the community

1 shop successfully sold to a buyer wishing to carry on the long history of a local shop serving the community of Warbleton & Rushlake Green, and the surrounding areas.

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