AN EMERGENCY shop which was opened when the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK will remain open for the rest of the year.

Volunteers opened Brent Knoll Emergency Shop just ten days after the Government announced the country was in lockdown in March and have continued to help their community by providing everything from flour to newspapers.

During that time, the emergency shop has won national acclaim and has been used as a case-study by the Plunkett Foundation in its national report to Government on rural community businesses.

The village shop has also been featured on BBC Radio 4’s “World Tonight” programme.

During lockdown the team secured the support of the national Plunkett Foundation which has helped more than 300 rural community shops and has succeeded in running for more than five months at a profit.

But Dr Niall Moore, chairman of the Brent Knoll Community Shop, said profit is not the aim of the shop.

He said: “We exist to provide our community with a service, and our aim is to restore both the village shop and the Post Office that this village has lost.”

The shop, which is based in the former village shop in Brent Street, could be the site of a permanent community shop in the village as volunteers are making plans to start a shop and restore the village Post Office which closed its doors last year.

“We are also exploring how we can deliver a village café, having proved the potential for this from a series of weekly coffee-mornings outside the shop,” Dr Moore said.

“In the near future, we’ll be announcing our future plans, and asking our community to support those plans.”

Brent Knoll’s Emergency Shop is open to visitors from Monday to Saturday from 9am until noon.

It is also open on Sundays from 9am to 11am.