Pitton Community Store

Our aim

We’re excited to embark on the journey of creating a vibrant community-run shop, Post Office, cafe and information hub, which will serve the residents of Pitton, Farley, Firsdown, and East Grimstead by offering a delightful range of services, including fresh groceries, local produce, and refreshments, as well as convenient postal and parcel services and newspaper delivery.
We look forward to making this vision a reality in 2026, coinciding with the closure of the current shop in Pitton.

Above is an artists’ impression of the proposed shop. Full details of the external and internal design are available here in the full planning document

Latest News!

21st February 2026

• The build is progressing more slowly than expected due to the awful weather we’ve been having.   We are therefore around 10 days behind plan though we have initiated some plans to catch this time up.  
• We all have our fingers crossed for a few dry weeks which will let the builders forge ahead.

Shop design and equipment

• Lots of work is underway to design the inside of the shop (with the help of interior designer JJ Wilson from 2B11).  JJ has kindly donated much of his time to help keep the costs down. 
• We are also developing the shop branding and logo which will be used in and outside the shop and across web and social media.  
• We are very pleased to announce that Pitton Social Club will contribute funds raised from this year’s fundraising event to the cost of signage for both the shop and village hall,   thank you.
• Various items of equipment, such as fridges and freezers, IT equipment for the office and a dishwasher have already been ordered.  These are being part funded by Wiltshire Council’s UK Prosperity Fund, which means we need to purchase these well in advance of the shop being completed.  Other key items such as a coffee machine, shelving and café seating will be purchased by mid March and we are exploring some good quality second-hand items to reduce costs.
• We initially thought that storing the big pallet items ordered early would be costly but Ross Nicholson at Spire Removals and Storage, Old Sarum, has come to our rescue and very kindly donated warehouse storage and delivery.  We are very grateful for his help.

Online Survey

• A few weeks ago we sent out a link to an online survey, which asked what you would like to buy in the shop.  
• We had 92 responses and these will be extremely helpful as we start to identify the produce we want to stock and local suppliers.  The full survey results can be viewed here.
• We were pleased to see that over 90% of the people who responded said they were happy to pay a little more for produce which is locally sourced, organic or high welfare, as this aligns perfectly with our vision for the shop and our aim to provide an outlet for local farmers and other producers.

Board Membership

• As mentioned in the last update we were pleased to receive support from residents of Farley and Firsdown and have therefore expanded our board to include the views of neighbouring villages.  
• We are delighted to announce that Mary Monnington from Farley and Simon Brown from Firsdown have been co-opted to the Board and have already begun contributing to the project.  Mary is currently developing a training booklet for volunteers and Simon developed and managed the recent on-line survey.  We look forward to working with them.

Information for Members 

• If you are a member of the Pitton Community Store Community Benefit Society you will receive an invite to the Annual General Meeting.  This is planned for 20^th May and full details will follow.
• The members update will include the usual financials and project plan along with more detail on the shop interior, volunteering opportunities and events.
• Several members have asked about tax relief for community share purchases.  HMRC issue a Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) template to us after 70% of the funds have been spent.  We then issue an individual form for each share purchaser and send on for you to complete to claim tax relief.  This is likely to be received in July/August.
• Lots of work has been completed on community shop policies and procedures (such as Health and Safety, Equality and Diversity, Safeguarding, etc).  If any members would like a copy please email lornatayloruk@icloud.com

Thank you to everyone who has already offered help with fit-out plans, hiring, site prep, and document reviews.

The second Share Prospectus , including an application form, can be viewed here. A separate application form is available.

You can view the Business Plan here. Background info for the public meeting can be found in the “PCSL Launch 2 26 Aug handout“.

Here is a summary of the Questions and Answers from the community meeting on September 13, 2025.

Residents’ Views …….

Thanks to Pitton residents for sharing their views on the village and the need for a shop, and to SJ Wareham for editing the video. You can view the video by double clicking below.