A SHOP staffed by a small army of volunteers has opened in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell near Wallingford, eight years after the last village store closed.

More than 100 local people have been involved in setting up the £150,000 store, behind the village hall, and it has finally opened for business after years of planning.

Although there is a paid manager, all the other work is being done by volunteers.

And alongside all the normal products sold in a village shop are dozens of locally grown or created items.

Filling the shelves are honey, wine, bread and cards produced in the village, plus flour from Wantage, wool from Didcot, meat from Cholsey and eggs from Milton.

Even surplus vegetables from villagers’ allotments are being sold.

Shop chairman Celia Collett, who started campaigning to keep a shop in the village in 2002, said the project had brought the community together.

She said: “There are 60 volunteers on shifts, just for one or two hours each.

“On top of that we have lots of people still helping in the background. There are so many people in the community involved it is hard to put a number on it.”

She added: “It has given the village a new centre.

“We have an excellent pub already, but now children can come in and buy their sweets here.

“It is absolutely wonderful they can do that again by themselves in their own village.”

Stephanie Clelland, the shop manager, added: “We are trying to work out what people want and get a regular rota up-and-running.

“We have already got lots of suggestions about different products, and we have to sieve them out so we are a real community shop and also a viable business.”

The shop, housed in a purpose-built eco-friendly extension at the back of the village hall, is open from 8.30am to 6pm on weekdays, 9am to 1pm on Saturdays and 9am to noon on Sundays.

Mrs Collett urged other villages who want to set up similar projects to contact Oxfordshire Rural Community Council, which helps the growing number of community-run shops to thrive.

The last shop in Brightwell closed in June 2002, and villagers raised £70,000 through a local share issue to help fund the new project.

A formal opening, by journalist and TV presenter Charlie Brooker, whose parents live in the village and whose grandmother used to run the Church Lane sweet shop, and Ron Wood, the former village schoolmaster whose sister ran the general stores, will take place on October 2.