Duchess of Northumberland visits Lesbury for official opening of community-run shop

After the closure of the previous Post Office and shop, volunteers formed a steering group with the vision to re-open the new shop as a community-owned and run, non-profit-taking, and community-focused service. It was registered as a Community Benefit Society in January.

Since then, Northumberland Estates have extensively repaired the shop and funding for additional improvements has been obtained from grants, donations and a community share offer.

One of the shops volunteers, John Gray, said: “The community got together and we decided, well this is it, we're going to make it work for everybody, for the young and old and I think it's worked very very well.

“One of the things it brings is that everybody gets together, I volunteer in the shop and I see people that sometimes I haven't seen for a while and it's lovely to have a chat with them.”