TROUBLE IN STORE
Community at war as award-winning shop is forced to close in row over use of village hall
FOR Claire Dodds, it seemed her hard work transforming a ‘stony patch of land’ into a thriving village shop had finally paid off.
But the afterglow of victory in Perthshire’s prestigious Best New Business award was sadly short-lived.
Only days after the ceremony, Miss Dodds’s Aberuthven Village Shop was served a notice to quit – amid a bitter dispute with a local village trust.
Reports of verbal confrontations in the street were last night denied by the 44year-old shop owner.
But a post on Facebook told customers there were a ‘number of reasons’ for closing down, including her landlord, the Aberuthven Village Trust – which she said was ‘determined’ to see her fail.
The Trust had originally allowed the owner of the purpose-built wood cabin shop to use the neighbouring village hall for electricity, water, storage and toilet facilities.
But relations have deteriorated so much that Miss Dodds has been told she can no longer use the hall or even speak to Trust members, who claim she did not pay her share of an electricity bill in full.
The store will now close this weekend, causing outcry among villagers who will have to travel three miles to the nearest con- venience store in Auchterarder. A petition has been launched to save the shop, attracting more than 100 signatures in store and around 1,000 more online. Miss Dodds said: ‘It shouldn’t have come to this but it seems they are determined to get rid of me. When I opened the shop in 2017 there was just a small patch of stony ground. I used £44,000 of my own money building the shop.
‘It was hard work but I believed a village with 500 inhabitants should have a shop for the basics – as there hadn’t been one here for about 20 years.’
She added: ‘It’s very sad. I’ve lived in the village for 18 years and a lot of my friends are customers and a lot of my customers have become friends.’
She said the shop had become a ‘popular hub’ for older residents who meet there to chat and make use of its van service, which delivers groceries to customers who are infirm or unable to visit in bad weather.
She said: ‘To install all the services to keep the shop open, I would need to find another £10,000. I just don’t have it.
‘I don’t think there is anything to be done. They sent me an electricity bill for over £2,000 for my share of the electricity. I paid it in full within four days.’
Chairman of Aberuthven Village Hall Trust Pauline Fyfe, 52, said the shop had initially failed to pay the bill in full, and that access to the other utilities was supposed to be temporary.
She said: ‘As a charity, there was no way we could do anything other than what we did.
‘But it was very much the shop owner’s decision. So if anybody is upset, then they should take that up with the owners.’
For Pat Leask, 69, the shop closure comes as a bitter blow. She said: ‘I lost my husband recently and now there is only me and the dog. I used to feel very isolated but when the shop opened it all changed.
‘It’s not just that it was handy to buy the essentials. In the good weather there were seats outside and we would sit and chat... It was good for us that live on our own.’
‘Determined to get rid of me’