A MAJOR initiative to safeguard the future of Cumbria's rural village shops has been launched by a local action group.

The Community Solutions Project has been created in a bid to assist existing independent retailers in rural areas and provide support for potential new enterprises.

Voluntary Action Cumbria (VAC) has teamed up with the Village Retail Services Association (ViRSA), an independent organisation dedicated to helping village shops survive, to launch the scheme that will offer advice, support and understanding to rural communities and their retailers.

Funding packages offered by ViRSA, which is an activity of the Plunkett Foundation, form a major part of the scheme and the CORE Village Programme is available for groups that want to develop community retail enterprises.

It means that if residents can raise one-third of start-up costs, Co-operative UK will provide a loan to match the amount raised, and ViRSA, backed by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, will provide a grant to cover the remaining third.

Eight groups throughout Cumbria have expressed to VAC an interest in establishing or developing a community enterprise, including Witherslack, which has recently launched a share options' scheme.

With the aim of starting their own shop and post office, residents of the South Lakeland village are buying shares to get the co-operative off the ground and have so far raised £21,000.

The committee has also received a £500 grant from VAC to set up as an Industrial and Provident Society as well as £25,000 from the Cumbria Rural Infrastructure Support Programme (CRISP), and it now plans to apply for CORE funding from ViRSA to help raise the £200,000 project cost.

Committee chairman John Sainsbury said the project had made a promising start and looked very hopeful.