At long last we have some dates for the re-fitting of the shop. Work will begin on Monday May 10^th and will last until the end of the month but the shop won’t move to its temporary home at The Crown until Friday May 14^th.

Apart from the uncertainty over the Post Office counter the delay has been increased by the transfer of the lease. It was finally assigned to us towards the end of March – nearly five months after we took over from Pat and Rob.

Andy Roberts is putting the finishing touches to the drawings and checking that all the work complies with building regulations and then the tradesmen, whose services have been very kindly donated by Graham Wylie, will start building the units prior to the re-fit. We are trying to keep the disruption to a minimum so on May 10^th work will begin on the ceiling in the afternoons when the shop is shut. After the stock has been moved out on Friday the 14^th it’s estimated it will take 2-3 days to strip everything out. Four days have been set aside for the laying of the new floor so that will take us to Friday the 21^st. The next day the fitting out is due to start and that is likely to take a week. Marie Roberts will be the project manager and Ray Blanckley will be looking after the electrical side of things.

The Crown

 As many of you know, the future of The Crown has become less certain after last orders on Sunday February 28th. But don’t worry, Humshaugh Community Ventures Limited, which runs the shop, has stepped into the breach. On Wednesday night (March 3rd) the directors took over the pub after signing a temporary lease while a new owner is found to buy it from Punch Taverns. The landlady is Jayne Walsham who, as many of you will remember, ran The Crown for nearly 7 years in the nineties. With Easter only a month away we wanted to make sure that the pub remains a bustling hub of the community while it waits for a permanent owner, whoever that might be. See The Journal and Hexham Courant  March stories.

Bad news about the Post Office. The mobile service will continue and we won’t be getting a counter in the shop. Post Office Limited have decided, after a review their services in the area, that the weekday lunchtime van will continue. Ironically they are also proposing that the van should call at Simonburn. If you remember that was our nearest permanent Post Office when the Humshaugh closure was announced in July 2008. Very controversially Simonburn has been “temporarily closed” since then and now it looks likely to suffer the same fate as ours although villagers may get fewer visits from the van than we do.

Post Office Limited’s Network Development Manager Jane Briginshaw said in her response to our request for a partner service in Humshaugh Village Shop: “I have made the decision to retain the current arrangement, with the mobile Post Office counter service continuing to provide a weekday daily service to Humshaugh. We will shortly be going into public consultation to propose some limited changes to the current timetable on the Stocksfield mobile route to incorporate a service point for Simonburn, and also one at Mickley Square. Althought the Post Office service will not operate from within the shop, I believe its presence in the community each weekday provides residents with access to services, which they might otherwise leafve the village for. I hope as a result the two services can be complimentary within the village.”

We had also asked for changes in the times of the mobile service, possibly to include Saturdays. That request has been rejected too. The Post Office says it will continue to look at whether changes could be made in the future.

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