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Monday, August 23, 2010

New services for rural retailers available in Scotland



About the RRR Project

Retail in Rural Regions (RRR) was a three year project (2009 to 2011) which aimed to benefit shops in rural areas. The overall purpose was to provide and sustain tailor made support to aid the survival, development and growth of rural retail shops. The project had a particular focus on the support needed to help stores become multi-functional and extend the range of services they offer.

The project involved nine Northern European Countries; Finland, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Faroe Islands, Northern Ireland, Greenland, Sweden and Norway. It is primarily funded by the Northern Periphery Programme and European Regional Development Fund. National match funding has come from different sources – Consumer Focus Scotland provided the match funding to enable CRN to become the Scottish partner in the project.

In Scotland the project has focussed on community-owned shops and has been co-ordinated by Tor Justad. Activities have included research into the needs of rural shops, followed by a number of study visits and a pilot retail training programme.
In 2009 the partner countries visited Uig Community Shop in Lewis and since then some managers from our network have had the opportunity to take part in study visits to Norway, the Faroe Islands, Ireland and Shetland.
Over 2011 a pilot training programme has enabled us to deliver a series of retail training sessions and test out the use of remote access in partnership with the University of the Highlands & Islands.
Participants attended a final conference in November 2011 in Heidarbaer, Iceland.

Services available in Scotland:

  • Consultation
  • Networking
  • Retail Training
  • Training materials on CRN website
  • Model of training using videoconferencing
  • Skillshop
  • Cooperation and exchanges with Norwegian Merkur -programme
Further information on Community Retailing web page.

Please do not hesitate to contact us!

Let’s work together to keep the cash flowing in rural shops!