Narrowing down options for Minard’s shop future

EFFORTS by the people of Minard to keep the village shop open have proved unsuccessful.

The shop, owned by Minard Community Trust, will be closed after tenants Mike and Syb Masters - who also operated a post office in the shop - decided to retire.

The closure comes despite an exercise by the trust to come up with ideas for the shop’s future use, in conjunction with local people.

In an online statement, Minard Community Trust said: ‘Unfortunately the efforts to try and keep the village shop open have been unsuccessful. The proposed closure date for the shop is April 13.’

The search goes on to identify a plan for the shop building. The trust has narrowed down suggestions to a shortlist of four and at a public meeting last week these were put to residents.

The preferred options are to find another business tenant; use the space as a community hub; convert the shop back to a house or sell the property and bank proceeds for the community.

Minard Community Trust chairman Brian Barker said: ‘It was a nice positive meeting, with around 25 folk there. It was all about focusing on how to make the best use of the space and people certainly came up with ideas that are food for thought.’

The trust will now meet to decide its next step.

Mr Barker continued: ‘The post office service will still be available for two hours per week from the village hall.

‘We are still talking with the Post Of- fice about the details of how this will work.’

A Post Office spokesperson said: ‘We would like to assure customers that we are currently investigating the options available which will enable us to reinstate a post office service to the local community.

‘In exploring this, it is important any future service is sustainable for the person operating the service and for the post office.’