The Llangors Shop Needs Your Help
The survey of residents showed there is widespread support for a volunteer run Shop to serve the Llangors Lake community. Such a shop would provide a community focus and meeting hub being open from early morning until early evening on most days per week, provide goods and services within walking distance for some residents and a shorter travelling distance for the wider community, be an outlet for local products and offer training and voluntary work opportunities for all ages and abilities. The Pandemic has only emphasised the benefits that will come from having a local source of food and other essentials.
The Steering Committee set up to make this happen has been working hard on behalf of the community making good progress despite the lockdown. A Community Benefit Society has been set up to run the shop and planning permission has been granted to locate the shop with a small café area next to the Community Centre in Llangors village and to create it out of two donated portacabins.
Getting this far has not been cost free with over £2000 spent to date on things like the fees for registering the Community Benefit Society with the Financial Conduct Authority, the Planning Permission application fees and setting up the shop website.
The full cost of building the shop, equipping it with shelving, fridges, freezers etc and then buying stock will in the region of £100,000. The Committee can raise this amount through applications for grant funding from bodies like the National Lottery and by selling shares in the Community Benefit Society.
However, to launch both these activities requires further spending of up to £5000 on such as the application fees for building permission, printing the share prospectus and once the lease is signed we will have to pay ground rent and take out insurance on the site of the shop. This expenditure is unavoidable because all legal permissions must be in place before a grant application will be accepted meaning that planning and building approval and the lease on the site are all needed before an application can be submitted.
Up to now the project has been supported financially through the personal generosity of the volunteer members of the Management Committee (renamed Steering Committee) and a contribution from the Llangors Community Council.
But this money is running out out and the Llangors shop will not be able to proceed without further financial backing to cover the immediate costs of progressing to the point where the grant applications can be submitted.
We now need your help if we are to keep your shared vision for a community owned shop in Llangors alive. We are therefore launching a fundraising campaign to raise the £5000 and to give you the chance to show your support for this worthwhile community project by making a donation.
Shares in the Community Benefit Society will be offered for sale later in year and entirely separate from this fundraising campaign.