Last shop in four villages is facing closure unless community rallies
Mar 21 2003
Steve.Dube@Wme.Co.Uk Steve Dubé, The Western Mail - The National Newspaper Of Wales

Volunteers needed to offer their time in one of the most sparsely populated parts of Wales is threatened with closure unless local people agree to run it.

The last chance for the Brechfa Forest shop, the only one in an eight-mile radius, rests on a public meeting in the north Carmarthenshire village next week. Unless the 300 or so residents of the parish of Llanfihangel Rhos y Corn feel able to share the burden by staffing a community store, the shop that goes back to the days of the little top-drawer rural retailers will shut forever.

Shopkeeper Peter Winchester, who has run Bryn Stores with his wife Barbara for the past eight years, said, "It's been the only shop in this village for 20 or 30 years, but there were once lots of little shops all over the place.

"They were called topdrawer shops because they put everything in the top drawer of the dresser in the front room."

Times have changed in the Brechfa Forest. The Old Tailor's Shop closed in the 1980s and after a brief spell as a crafts shop it is now a private home.

The village stores in neighbouring Abergorlech, Gwern-ogle and Llansawel also closed during the past few years, leaving Brechfa's Bryn Stores the only retail outlet for miles around.

This is where you can still buy groceries, milk, newspapers, sweets, cigarettes, beer, wine and spirits and various household items. There is even wallpaper paste for DIY home improvements.

The nearest alternative is a garage shop at Whitemill, eight miles away, or shops in Llanybydder or Llandeilo, both about 12 miles distant.

"Most of our customers are elderly and we have lost quite a few over the past year," said Barbara Winchester.

"Quite a few of those who are left are housebound or have gone into homes, so a lot of our bread-and-butter income has gone."

The last straw was the loss of the post office just over a year ago.

The newly privatised Post Office decided to cut costs by withdrawing the salary for a sub-postmaster and shifting the business to a private house, which now opens for only six hours a week.

"It's got to the point where we have to put our own money into the shop to keep it open, although the last thing we want to do is close it down," said Mrs Winchester.

"We feel the shop is one of the most important parts of this community so we have approached the community association on behalf of the village to see whether there's any possibility of them taking it over on a voluntary basis so that it won't close.

"We are prepared to do our bit to help towards it in any way we can but we just feel that it's finally come to the point where we can't afford to run it any more because it's just not a viable proposition."

Bryn Stores is the latest victim of the revolution in shopping achieved by the super-markets, which have all but monopolised family shopping.

More recently the future of numerous village stores has been threatened by the Post Office, which is cutting costs by reducing the payments to small post offices that helped many of the shops to remain open.

The future of Bryn Stores will now depend on whether the community association feels able to take a lease on the premises and run it as a community venture.

"It will make a small profit if it's run on a voluntary basis, but that relies on enough members of the community being prepared to give up a few hours every week," said Mrs Winchester. "There's tremendous vocal and written support for it, but it remains to be seen if that will become something more than that." The chairman of Llanfihangel Rhos y Corn Community Association, Roger Newman, described the shop as vital for the survival of the community.

"It acts as a focal point both for the residents in Brechfa and for the wider community in the southern forest area," he said.

"With the closure of the shops in Gwernogle, Llansawel and Abergorlech it is now the only place locally to get basic supplies."

The association is currently promoting the historic forest through an independent Pobol y Fforest venture that has won a grant of £180,000 to increase activities and boost the local economy.

Plans include a project for a mountain-bike trail, but Mr Newman warned that closure of the shop could jeopardise this.

"I was at a meeting recently with Dafydd Davies, the expert in such trails, outlining the importance of providing facilities close at hand," he said. "If the shop goes then that is an additional nail in the coffin.

"It might become yet another expensive project that looks good on paper but actually brings no benefit to our rural community."

A public meeting next Thursday in Brechfa Church Hall will discuss the possibility of turning Bryn Stores into a community-run venture.

Community association vice-chairwoman and Pobol y Fforest director Caroline Evans said such projects had been shown to work elsewhere.

"There are excellent examples such as Llanbadarn Fynydd in Powys where the village shop is staffed with volunteers," she said.

"Our community has skills and expertise that could be used, but the essential part is the desire to keep our shop.

"This is the next and major step and the public meeting will enable us to assess this."