THE opening hours of an emergency village shop launched during lockdown are being extended after requests from customers.

Volunteers at Brent Knoll Emergency Shop have agreed to give up more of their time after customers responded to a survey and asked for the shop to be open for longer.

The shop is currently open from 9am to 11am from Monday to Saturday but it will now be open from 9am until noon and 2pm to 4.30pm on Saturday's in order to keep up with demand.

“This is our Saturday plan for the rest of July”, said David Sturgess, a member of the shop's management committee.

“We are also working with our pool of volunteers to expand the opening hours for Monday to Friday."

The shop team, which aims to open a permanent community shop and re-open Brent Knoll’s Post Office, issued an online and paper questionnaire for customers to get their views on the shop's opening hours.

“By far the biggest demand was that we extend our opening hours: and that is what we are now trying to do”, said David Sturgess.

The Brent Knoll shop team has also secured registration as a Community Benefit Society, with the support of the Plunkett Foundation, which has helped more than 300 rural community shops to flourish.

“We are now able to pursue our objective of creating a permanent community shop for Brent Knoll and to restore our Post Office”, Mr Sturgess added.