A FUND-RAISING drive to re-finance a West Somerset village shop and Post Office is closing in on its £60,000 target.

Residents in Wootton Courtenay have so far brought in nearly £46,000 as the shop directors seek to repay loans raised when the store was bought more than 30 years ago.

The directors also want to carry out essential repairs and upgrading work in the Wootton Courtenay Villagers’ Stores.

They agreed a new shares offering last October aimed at making the shop’s future more secure.

Shop director Barbara O’Keefe said fund-raising was ‘going well’, but she wanted to make a special plea to anybody who used the shop’s Skye’s Bar and had not yet donated or bought shares.

Sarah Fox and Mark Burgess, who have transformed Wootton Courtenay Post Office and Villagers' Stores.
Sarah Fox and Mark Burgess took over Wootton Courtenay Post Office and Villagers' Stores in 2023. ( )

Ms O’Keefe said: “There would be no Skye’s Bar without a village shop. Please give generously.”

New tenants Sarah Fox and Mark Burgess took over the shop in 2023 after it had been run for more than four years by Andy Giles.

But the directors were concerned the risk of closure was becoming greater and so they wanted to restructure the company to make it more secure.

Ms O’Keefe said Wootton Courtenay was probably one of the smallest villages in England to have a shop which was open on seven days a week, a Post Office opening on five days a week, a café with a garden, a licensed bar, and a prescription collection service.

The shop was bought in 1991 when the community raised the equivalent in today’s money of about £250,000.