Heartbreak as village shop announces closure

The Llanymynech Village Shop is closing on Good Friday

The owner of a village’s only convenience store has said he is heartbroken as spiralling costs force him to close.

Despite winning an award in the Countryside Alliance Rural Oscars, Llanymynech village shop on the border between Shropshire and Powys will shut on Good Friday.

Duncan Borthwick, who has run the shop since 2021, says takings have plummeted by £10,000 a month.

“Financially, we ran out of money. I don't take any wages, we are just paying the bills at the moment,” he told the BBC.

Despite its struggles its importance in the community has won it an award in the Countryside Alliance Rural Oscars

The shopkeeper had worked for the previous owners and when they retired, he decided to buy the shop to keep it as a part of the community.

Mr Borthwick said: “I went into it with massively high hopes and sadly it hasn’t worked.

“The dream was to continue being a hub for the community and to build it up.”

However a year later the dream turned sour as “extreme ups and downs in stock availability post-Brexit” and a “biting cost of living crisis” took a toll on the business.

Sarah Hawkins says Duncan is a 'fixture and fitting' of the community

Now, three weeks before it is set to shut up shop for good, empty shelves paint a picture of its bleak reality.

“I contemplated taking my own life, it was a very difficult decision that I’ve come to - I felt I was letting the village down,” the shop owner said.

“It's not making a profit, it would need a miracle in the economy to get back to where we were."

Clifford Bettam described the store as a 'lifeline'

The landlord’s intention is not to renew the lease and to sell the building, Mr Borthwick has said.

The former gardener continued: “The community has been incredibly supportive, they know how I’ve been feeling and the love out there has been amazing, that’s what pulled me back.

“I’ve been here a long time and you get to know [customers’] lives and stories, you know everybody, a lot of customers I went to school with and you see their children grow up. I’m going to miss all that.”

Sarah Hawkins, who helps out in the shop, said: “Duncan is the fixture and fitting of the community even before he took the shop over he was one of the first faces I met in the village.”

Clifford Bettam, a customer, described the shop as a “lifeline” and said it “will be a sad day when it closes”.

Another customer who lives in Stourbridge but comes to the village for holidays claimed there is “nowhere else to go” as it is the “centre of the community”.