Community Shop Project
In 2015 Parish Councillor Peter Hill organised a project to establish whether a Community Shop might be set up in Denton.
However after holding a public meeting and setting up a steering group it was agreed not to proceed any further.
In April Peter sent out about 150 questionnaires to households in Denton of which 115 were returned. The reason for the shortfall being that nobody was in when they were collected. Some collectors were more persistent than others. The first question enquired how frequently households would use a Community Shop. 108 households answered this question and 54% said they would use it at least once per week and a further 44% said they would us it occasionally. Answers to another question indicated that 72% felt it was at least reasonably important.
These results indicated it was worth taking matters one step forward and accordingly Peter arranged for Peter Smith of the Norfolk Rural Community Council to talk to the meeting on 13 September.
Mr Smith has had experience of setting up a number of Community Shops including a particularly successful one at Great Ryburgh, 4 miles from Fakenham. He also talked about other Community Shops at Mileham and Itteringham. In each case the situation was different because they were responding and adapting to different markets. He dispelled some of the myths including that prices would be too expensive and that Tesco were the main competition. He considered neither were true.
It was decided to form a Steering Group from volunteers at the meeting and others who had volunteered on the questionnaire. The steering group considered what type of Community Shop would be best for Denton and the surrounding area, size of premises and possible locations amongst other matters. As part of this process the group looked at established Community Shops.
Eventually, after further work, the Group found that, with the expansion of on-line shopping with good delivery facilities, there did not seem to be enough support to take the project any further.