PLANNING permission is being sought for Stogumber Community Village Shop and Post Office to relocate to the building next door to it.

The move is needed for the volunteer-run shop to be more viable and to allow former shop owners Roger and Anne Howe to sell their premises.

Villagers are currently being asked to buy shares in the community benefit society which runs the shop to help fund the move and fitting out of the new premises.

The society wants to raise up to £350,000, much of which it hopes will come from a grant application.

Spokesman Julian Spicer said the current shop premises at 6 High Street included a four-bedroom residential space and a garden which were not needed by the shop but could only be accessed through it.

Mr Spicer said extensive alterations and loss of shop frontage and floor area would be involved in providing a separate access to the residential accommodation.

He said the plan instead was to buy 4 High Street, which was a smaller, less complex building which would be cheaper and simpler to maintain, and where the same amount of retail floorspace could be achieved.

The new property, which was grade two listed, was also next door to the village’s White Horse Inn, which offered the potential for future collaboration.

Mr Spicer said No 4 had been a shop from 1911 and until the 1940s, and was also opposite the parish church, so the location would maintain the vitality of The Square at the heart of the village and be consistent with previous use.

Planning permission was needed for a change of use from residential back to a shop and for some minor demolition and construction work, including removing a staircase to increase the retail area and building one in a new rear extension.

The front ground and first floor windows also needed to be replaced with some which were more sympathetic to the property and the village conservation area.

Mr Spicer said: “The previous owners of the shop needed to retire and were unable to sell the business and premises to a commercial operator.

“If they had not kindly allowed the community-run shop to rent for the short-term the existing premises, the shop would have closed and it would have been very much harder for a community-run shop to start and become established.

“The proposed shop location is within easy walking distances of all homes in the village of Stogumber, and viable walking or cycling distance of some of the hamlets and scattered housing.”

More than 50 volunteers have been helping to run the shop since it became a community enterprise in April of last year.

The shop’s trustees will take a decision during this month on how to proceed with the project and hope the new premises can be open by next March.

Somerset Council is asking for public comments on the planning application by July 25 and has set itself a target to take a decision by August 20.