UIG COMMUNITY SHOP WINS NATIONAL AWARD
Posted: 08 December 2010, in Press Release
Uig Community Shop has won a national community regeneration award for best practice in the community and has been hailed as a glowing example of community enterprise.
SURF – Scotland’s independent regeneration network, selected the shop for undertaking outstanding work in one of Scotland’s remote disadvantaged communities.
John Watt, Chair of Highlands and Island Enterprise, who was guest speaker at the Awards Dinner, said the shop has provided a heart for the community, providing services and a community focus which would have been lost if there had not been a community buy out in 2004 followed by the expansion and development in 2007/8.
The judges (two of whom came out to visit the shop) thought it an outstanding and particularly well rounded project. They recognised that Uig Shop is so much more than just a shop and whilst is serves it’s primary function very well, it does so much more to meet the needs of the community with the sale of fuels, hot and cold food and refreshments, a meeting place offering internet access and video-conferencing facilities, book exchange and including what must surely be the most westerly laundrette in the UK!
They felt the shop provides a vital hub for such a remote community and is clearly sustainable with no reliance on revenue subsidy.
SURF is Scotland’s indepedent regeneration network and its overall objective is to improve the health and wellbeing of residents in Scotland’s disadvantaged communities. It acts as a channel to the Scottish government for information, consultation and policy proposals, based on its diverse knowledge and experience.