Seven units, no rent until July, and a short list of things the council does not want to see in them.
Seven empty shops on the lower end of Harbour Street will be let rent-free for six months from January, under a scheme the council hopes will fill the gaps that have opened since the bank and two charity shops closed. The council owns four of the units. The other three belong to a pension fund, which has agreed to take part in return for the council paying the business rates while the trial lasts. Applicants must open at least five days a week and must not be a vape shop, a betting shop or, at the insistence of one councillor, "another place selling candles". Thirty-eight people had applied by Tuesday. They include a cobbler, a children's bookshop, a bicycle repair co-operative and a woman who wants to open a shop selling only things made in Port Avery. "Which is mostly fish and jam," she said, "but there is more than you think." The scheme costs the council about £40,000. Similar…
Continued on p. 4 →The morning delivery at a shop on Alder Road. The loaves arrive before the newspapers. AI-generated
Three bakeries, forty shops and a delivery van that leaves at 4 a.m.
Five years ago, a loaf of sourdough in Port Avery meant a trip to the market on a Saturday. Today it sits on the counter of forty corner shops, next to the milk. The change was not planned by anyone. It began when the three small bakeries on the east side, each too small to run its own van, agreed to share one. Shopkeepers who had never stocked bread worth more than a pound found that a £4.50 loaf sold out by nine. “It brings people in,” said Hassan Qureshi, whose shop on Alder Road takes twelve loaves a day. “Nobody comes in for a newspaper any more. They come in for the bread and they buy a newspaper.” The shared van now leaves the Mill Lane bakery at four. Its driver, Joe Ferris, knows every back door on the route.
The Saturday market on Exchange Square will also open on Thursday evenings from November to February, with lights and hot food. Thirty of its fifty traders have signed up.
Why the standing charge went up, what the sewerage line pays for, and the three numbers worth checking.
The new water bills arrived across Port Avery this week, and the phone lines at the utility’s office have been busy since. The total has risen by about nine percent for a typical household, but most of the rise sits in a single line. The standing charge, which every home pays whatever it uses, went up by a fifth. The utility says the money goes to replacing the Victorian mains under the old town, where a burst pipe flooded Wren Square last winter. Three numbers are worth checking: the meter reading, which is sometimes estimated; the number of people the bill assumes live in your home; and the sewerage line, which you can reduce if your roof water runs into your garden rather than the drain.
The new owners of the café at the end of the northern quay have applied for permission to put six tables outside from April to September. Objections can be made on the council website until the end of the month.
