Mileham Community Shop
From Norfolk RCC
Mileham Community Shop Opens In Record Time!
On the 17th of January a public meeting was held at Mileham Village Hall to discuss the future of the village shop and post office. As a result of the wide ranging interest from the community it was agreed to go ahead with the consideration of taking on the shop as a community project.
Two local residents - Mike & Sheila Kidd have purchased the property and are leasing it back to the community at a social rent. A working group was formed from volunteers who came forward from the public meeting. Villagers have shown great generosity in making loans and donations to help the project get off of the ground and ensure that there is a continuation of service from the previous owners. The working group, led by Sheila Kidd have put in many hours of work and on Monday March 12th the doors of the Community Shop were opened to the public. This followed a weekend of hard graft by a willing band of volunteers who spent two days cleaning the shop and restocking the shelves.
The shop will be one of the first Community Interest Companies trading as a store and shares will be made available to the villagers so that they can truly have ownership of the business.
This is a magnificent effort by the community of Mileham. Norfolk RCC has been instrumental in helping this venture and will continue to work with the people of Mileham to make this a model hub providing a range of services to the community. The first priority has been to get the shop open and running smoothly before we move on to the next stage.
It is generally accepted that it takes at least 6 months to get a community shop up and running - 8 weeks is simply groundbreaking.
We believe that Mileham can be proud for breaking all records in this achievement