Community Shop Project

In the summer of 2019, a group of Ogwell residents came together to investigate the feasibility of setting up a community shop in the village. Ogwell has not had a local shop since the closure of the Village Stores on Margaret Road in November 2014. A community shop could potentially bring social and environmental benefits, and offer employment opportunities.

The group recently conducted a survey to gauge the interest in a local shop, where and how people currently shop, and what products and services they would like a shop to offer. You can see the results here, and a summary below.

Community Shop Survey
There were 352 responses to the survey from the estimated 1,230 households in the parish. This equates to a 28.6% response rate, which compares well to the 20%-25% typical range reported by the Plunkett Foundation, which supports rural communities to set up or save a community shop or business.

The products people would most like a local shop to provide are fresh milk, bread, fruit and vegetables. They are least interested in coal / logs, stationary and craft.

They mostly shop regularly at branded shops such as supermarkets, etc (26%), premium shops (18%), independent shops (18%), with only 2% using community shops. The vast majority travel by car to shop, with only 5% walking or cycling.

The most important attributes of a local shop for survey respondents are: location, free parking, local produce and price.

Location
330 respondents provided location information, as follows:
Reynell Road area 29.1%
Margaret Road area 17.6%
Old Village 15.2%
West Ogwell 12.7%
Denbury Road 2.7%
Other 7.6%
(Note: the default answer was West Ogwell, so the figure for that area may be suspect.)