The Village Shop Upper Dicker wins the AirS / Country Landowners Association (CLA) Rural Business Award 2010
Friday, June 18th, 2010
The Marquis of Abergavenny with Tess Flower (Co Owner) and Lauren Norwood (Manager) at the Awards Ceremony at the South of England Show on the 10 June 2010.
The AirS / Country Landowners and Business Association (CLA) annual Rural Business Award this year has been presented to the Village Shop, Upper Dicker in East Sussex. The Award was presented to Tess Flower, the co-owner of the shop at the South of England Show on 10 June 2010.
William de Salis, AirS Trustee speaking at the award ceremony said “ The Rural Business Award is a celebration of rural enterprise. And in this case it is a story of success coming out of adversity”.
The Village Shop, the only one in the area, was hit hard in 2008, when the Post Office was closed. Rather than put up the shutters Tess decided to embark on a programme of business development to make the shop viable and recapture the community spirit in Upper Dicker. A café was opened selling hot food, providing take aways, cakes and other baked goods, mainly using local produce. William said “This is a brilliant assert for the village which has done much for the social wellbeing of the community. In addition much of the capital work was enabled by a LEADER Grant from the WARR Partnership and this too is an excellent example of EU investment in the area.”
For more details about The Village Shop and Upper Dicker please click here.