St. Joseph's Convent, Planning Submission, 16 December 2009 Change of use to modernise kitchen and outbuildings of redundant St. Joseph's Convent, Monks Kirby to cater for nursery and pre-school in main buildings.

Plan includes Community Shop selling local food grown and made on the premises plus household essentials with a small café area to allow villagers to meet and collect freshly made ready meals or and hot food before/after work.

To include teaching facilities for children & adults cookery school. St. Joseph's Convent Description of Proposal

1. Reopen St Joseph's Junior School as a day nursery for 6 months to 5 years, including a kids club for Children before and after normal school hours. Expand in to Classroom 4, Refectory, south garden and west wing of former Boarding school (change of use for these areas). 2. Modernise school kitchen to cater for school, community shop & café. No change of use. 3. Convert redundant playgrounds into car park for staff and visitors. 4. Convert redundant washing room into bakery to bake artisan bread and teach baking. Convert adjacent coal storeroom into bakery storage area with toilet for visitors and staff. 5. Convert pantry into coldroom to meet modern standards for making and storing food. No change of use. 6. Convert redundant clothes drying room into separate kitchen to keep meat preparation separate from vegetarian food and for teaching sausage making and charcuterie. 7. Enclose staircase in washing up room next to kitchen to meet modern hygiene requirements and add fire exit/ service access to old playground. 8. Convert groundsman’s storeroom/Garage 1 and Garage 2 into small Community Shop with café area shared by cookery school for children and adults (Plan 2, p9). Install door/fire exit between Garage 2/Groundsmans store and fit window lights to south facing roof of Groundsmans store as visual. The shop will sell food made on the premises or locally produced plus household essentials from toilet paper to toothpaste. 9. Renovate Refectory for children and visitors and add fire exit/wheelchair access into old playground. 10. Reinstate kitchen garden in walled garden to supply kitchen and cookery school. No change of use. St. Joseph's Convent existing kitchen Clockwise from top left; stairwell of washing up room, drying room, washroom, washroom & coal store exterior Interior of groundsman's storeroom Exterior of outbuildings clockwise from top; front showing position of proposed roof lights over shop space, right garage door, left garage door showing design for glass shop doors behind existing shutters Interior of groundsman's storeroom Interior of groundsman's storeroom showing door and garage doorway

Plan of kitchen annex and outbuildings Outbuildings showing St. Joseph's public entrance gate across former playground Outbuildings showing refectory and former playground leading to teacher's car park at rear St Joseph's Convent nursery entrance from gateway off Brockhurst Lane St Joseph's Convent entrance gate off Brockhurst Lane Clockwise from top left; refectory, refectory interior, teacher's car park at rear, view from teacher's car park St Joseph's Convent tradesman's entrance from walled garden and walled garden from gate off Brockhurst Lane St. Joseph’s Convent, Monks Kirby Design & Access Statement

St. Joseph’s Convent School dates back to the 1873 when the 8th endowed the Sisters of Mercy with the chapel, school and other buildings. It was a working School with up to 30 boarders until the mid 1990’s when it was the village Junior School and feeder school for Brockhurst School adjacent. St. Joseph’s Convent School overlooks playing fields donated by the Denbigh Estate for the use of children of the village and Brockhurst Lane on the road side. The road side of the Convent is walled off for it’s entire length with large entrance gates to the front playground and a private entrance to the nun’s cells and kitchen through the large walled kitchen garden next to the new Catholic Church. St Joseph’s Junior School closed in 1994 and the pupils merged with Brockhurst School, renamed as The Revel School, and the Convent closed in 2000. For a short intervening period since the Convent was partly occupied by The Pilgrim’s Community but has been unused for over five years. No maintenance has been performed for over 10 years and the Convent has fallen into disrepair. The Convent is shortly to be boarded up by the Diocese to meet insurance requirements. Boarding up may irreparably damage the windows, particularly plastic casements and the arched windows of the Chapel and Sacristy. Aside from exterior damage, there is the risk that boarding up will encourage vandals secure in the privacy boarded up windows will provide. Since the 1873 the Convent School was added to with a series of utility extensions in a mixture of red brick. The main living quarters and Mother Superior's Office were pebble dashed in the last century. Owing to lack of maintenance, the Convent retains a number of features; of particular interest is the Sacristy and Chapel which feature arched windows with leaded lights plus a number of religious features including a Confessional and Priest’s Cubby Hole. The groundsman’s store with garage doors either side are of modern construction in common red brick. The Convent has no listed building status. The Convent features a Chapel, Sacristy, Refectory, school rooms in the main building, a school extension on the field side with kitchen, Refectory and service areas on the road side. The service areas comprise a dishwashing room, drying room for the nun’s habits, washroom, coal store, plus a groundsman’s workroom with two garages used for lumber and tool storage. This application for partial change of use relates to the service areas in the outbuildings which back onto Brockhurst Lane facing the large former playground, and to bring back Classroom 4 and Refectory into use for nursery and school. Returning the main building and existing kitchen to educational use requires no change in consent. However, converting the outbuildings to provide additional catering facilities to handle meat separately, bake bread and comply with food safety regulations does. To make the school sustainable and pay for over £270,000 renovation additional permission is required to convert the outbuildings to incorporate a café/meeting area and Community Shop. No extension or change to exterior of the outbuildings is proposed apart from discreet signage to indicate the location of the nursery and village shop to visitors. The minimum renovations to the existing kitchen are listed in Appendix 1 attached. The 40 page schedule of proposed work on the building can be obtained by emailing [email protected] Sara Chambers is a homemade Italian food producer and caterer. Her business, Squisito Deli, is a BBC Good Food Show and Slow Food UK Award Winner 2008 - 2009 and she is an accredited Slow Food producer and Farmers Market trader in and all surrounding counties plus Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham and Derbyshire amongst others. Squisito is 2 years old and an expanding home based local food business in Brockhurst Lane, Monks Kirby, making fresh Italian food and ice cream from local ingredients almost entirely sourced within a 50km radius according to Slow Food principles. Sara is also a founder member of Slow Food Warwickshire. In the intervening period since the Monks Kirby Parish Plan of 2006, the village lost its remaining shop and Post Office both located in Brockhurst Lane. In 1970 the village featured a Post Office, one general store, two farm shops and two antique shops whilst in 1960 the village also had a butcher and an undertaker located in Brockhurst Lane. The village has two pubs but one of those closed in 2008 and is now under temporary management by villagers but not as a going concern. Sara Chambers proposes a new village shop with a café/meeting area located in the Convent outbuildings whose entrance would face away from the road enclosed by the larger playground. As such, the shop and café/meeting area would be completely self-contained. It is proposed to open the shop and café at the times that villagers indicate they want it open - on the way to and from work or collecting children, for lunch and at weekends to save on shopping trips to Rugby, , or Leicester. Ken Parsons, Chairman of the Rural Shops Alliance states that "To be a viable business a rural shop needs to operate from 7am to 8pm at night 7 days a week with a Post Office". In this case the other activities will add diversity and sustainability. It is unlikely that a village shop would be able to offer Post Office facilities Sara Chambers is exploring a weekly visit from a mobile Post Office. Sara Chambers is also investigating a grant to introduce a PayPoint so people can pay tax and utility bills. Squisito also propose to restore the walled kitchen garden to feed the children and for use by the children’s and adults cookery school sharing the same facilities. Squisito is in consultation with The Royal Horticultural Society’s School Gardening Team, Let's Get Cooking and The School Food Trust. Regarding traffic in Monks Kirby, with which there is significant village concern in relation to the number of parents dropping off and collecting children from the Revel School between 08:30 - 09:00 and 15:15 -15:45, the addition of nursery and pre-school/after-school facilities will reduce traffic to the neighbouring Revel School at peak times because parents can drop off children earlier or later. Because parents with elder siblings at the Revel School will be offered preferential placement at the nursery and pre-school, it is expected that the nursery will reduce vehicle movements to carers elsewhere. Vehicle movements to and from the village are likely to drop because basic necessities from bread, cheese and milk to sausages, fresh roast coffee and vegetables will be produced on the premises and will be walking distance for Monks Kirby, , Stretton under Fosse and villagers. The Community Shop will stock household essentials ranging from toilet rolls and postage stamps to nuts and bolts and newspapers, whilst the café will offer wi-fi so that internet banking or open learning can be done. Sara wants the café to be a daytime meeting place for all villagers. Squisito has a very low use of suppliers using delivery vehicles because most suppliers trade at Farmers Markets where Squisito does reciprocal trade. Similarly, Squisito does not offer large scale wholesale trade. There is little or no scope for the location of a village shop or other educational facilities elsewhere in the village with off street parking for teachers and staff. Reinstating local shops and social facilities is in accordance with Policy TCR8 9.31 and 9.32 of the Rugby Local Area Plan and Policies H16, GP16 and Section 2.15 of the Rugby Area Local Plan Core Strategy. See also Government Planning Policy Statement 7: Sustainable Development in Rural Areas i, ii, iii, & iv. The continued dilapidation of St Joseph's Convent will inevitably force demolition or redevelopment into high cost housing with all the associated problems of extra vehicles travelling to and from facilities elsewhere in context of village denuded of amenities. Further housing development would also be contrary to the Monks Kirby Parish Plan of 2006. By contrast, a village shop with an active and diverse local food business run by villagers would be a valuable amenity and a significant new employer of village people on a full time, part time and voluntary basis. Pat Hudson of the Plunkett Foundation, which promotes self help in rural communities, states "There's a 7.5% drop in property prices (in villages) where there's no shop" and adds "A community shop is the focal point and information point of a village. It's also a lifeline for lots of villagers and can give residents a new interest and enable them to meet people they would not normally see." We believe the nature of the proposed business would revitalise our rural community and be an outlet and ambassador for the rural economy in Warwickshire. For further information contact; Sara Chambers The Old School House 1 Brockhurst Lane Monks Kirby Warwickshire CV23 0RA t 01788 833 477 e [email protected]

Planning submission dated 11th January 2010 St. Joseph’s Convent, Monks Kirby: An open letter from Sara Chambers, Maurice Hartnett & Naomi Hill

Read at Monks Kirby Parish Council Meeting 9 September 2009. Firstly, please let me introduce you to the villagers involved in the project; Naomi Hill is proposing to open a pre-school nursery with extended school services. Naomi anticipates the majority of the families using the nursery will be parents with younger siblings of children attending The Revel School. Maurice Hartnett retires in 12 months and wants to open a small scale bakery making handmade bread and teach artisan baking. Sara Chambers would like to cook for the children attending the nursery and cook there for her Squisito Deli business which trades at Farmers Markets and local catering events and give cookery lessons. Her husband Alex Chambers would like to run a small community shop with a café meeting area. Secondly, but more importantly, we would like to apologise for the misleading communication you may have experienced regarding the proposed change of use of St Joseph's Convent. Looking at the Planning Application by itself we agree it does look like we are requesting permission for a multinational supermarket and a fast food takeaway chain. We assure you that this is not the case. To allay fears we have consulted with interested parties and posted a full explanation of our plans in the Village. We also held an open house at the Convent today, 3rd September 2009 to talk through our proposals. Essentially the Planning Application is a cooperative project between 3 separate village businesses to restore and reopen St Joseph’s Convent: Naomi seeks to employ local people to staff the nursery whilst Maurice's bakery would be only himself and Sara's business would employ only herself and Alex. Because the main area of objection appears to be reopening a village shop with café and bakery this letter focuses mainly on these areas. We propose a small sustainable community shop, café with just 10 covers, cookery school, bakery and 2 food preparation kitchens. In more detail:- The whole floor space for the community shop/cafe and bakery is just 28 sq mtrs or 33 square yards comprising 3 rooms in the outbuildings of the property with a small storage garage in between. The walkable area of the shop is little more than the last Monks Kirby Post Office in Brockhurst Lane. The Bakery The Planning Application requests maximum operating hours from 2.00 am to 9.00am Monday to Saturday and Sundays or Bank Holidays if required. In practice, Maurice will bake just 3 days a week to supply the shop and Farmers Markets and the proposed bakery is 1 room, measuring 17ft x 12ft or 5.5m x 4m. There will be a fortnightly daytime delivery of essential ingredients. He will run a small van which will be kept off site. Bread will not be available to large retailers. All bread is handmade and the baking process does not involve the use of heavy industrial machinery/large ovens so any noise/odour will be minimal. Kitchen 2 The kitchen measures 15ft by 11ft or 4.7m x 3.6m. It is a self contained room adjacent to the main kitchen to make sausages or ham with meat supplied by a local butcher and where people can be taught to make their own sausages and cure meat. Café The proposed café area is 11ft x 11ft or 3.6m x 3.6m and can seat a maximum of 10 people. The intention is for the café to be a daytime meeting place for villagers, parents, walkers, tradesmen, carers and teachers attending the local schools where you can sit down and have a cup of tea or coffee and a snack. Cookery School The proposed cookery school will teach a variety of skills ranging from bread and pasta making to sausage and ice- cream making. Courses will be pre booked and on non production days. The cookery school will share the bakery room and the 2 kitchens. Students will meet up to have lunch or coffee in the café/meeting room area or have lessons there. Class sizes will range from a minimum of 2 to a maximum of 8 people. The purpose of the café and meeting area opening times (on the Planning Application showing 7:00am to 11.00pm) is so that students can take the opportunity to eat the food they have made after the course. We are not going to open the shop or café to the public every evening until 11.00 pm. Again it is simply that the Planning Application requires listing overall hours permitted because planning consent categorises any ‘eating on the premises’ as a “restaurant or café”. Community Shop The proposed community shop is a room measuring 13ft x 11ft or 4.2m x 3.6m so as you can see it is not large. Sara's plan is for the Community Shop to open when villagers want to use it so she applied for maximum hours 7am to 8pm to cover all eventualities. Sara wants to try opening 7am to 9am and 12pm to 7:30pm so customers can pickup their lunch or dinner on the way to and from work or when they collect their children from school. She will also stock basic household necessities from bread, milk, toilet roll to toothpaste to stamps and hearing aid batteries for example. Takeaway The proposed shop area will double up as a ‘takeaway’ in planning terms. The food to take away will be coffee, tea, sandwiches, soup etc. e.g. the same menu available in the café. This is the total extent of the hot food to ‘takeaway’ from the premises. We are not proposing a ‘fast food outlet’. We make Slow Food not fast food. Again it is simply the Planning Application that lists the hours in this way because planning consent categorises taking any hot food off the premises, so much as a cup of coffee, as “hot food takeaway”. The future intention is to run occasional food events, such as an Italian Food evening which requires the appropriate planning permission i.e. our request to be able to open until 11.00 pm. With regards to odours, we have been advised by our Environmental Health Officer at Rugby Council that small Xpelair window extractors are sufficient for our type of cooking as we do not fry anything and we will be using electric cookers and ovens. Nursery Naomi has applied for permission to care for up to a maximum of 80 preschool children which is calculated by the area of the Convent according to Ofsted regulations. However, it is unlikely as a small business that the figures will approach that. Her forecast is for 21 children plus relocating the Kids Club from Revel School which are part of the ‘extended services’ The Revel School is obliged to provide. Parking The proposal includes self contained off road parking for all 3 businesses. We expect to more than fulfil Government parking guidelines according to PPG 13. Parents with siblings at The Revel School will be able to park in the Convent car park. We will actively encourage Revel School parents to use our community shop/cafe and car park. Opening Hours The problem we have encountered with the planning process is that you have to use planning terms which can appear alarming. For instance we specified the maximum hours of use on the Planning Application form - the result being it gives the impression that the businesses will be open 24 hours a day with HGV's racing in and out of the village. This is absolutely untrue and has never been our intention. The hours applied for are the potential maximum days or hours as you have to make another planning application if you need to change the opening hours even 1/2 hr either way but not if you want to be closed 9am to 3pm. The Future of the Convent The Convent is owned by the Diocese of Birmingham. It is not a listed building and they have no plans apart from ours to secure its future. Naomi has spent the last year negotiating with the Diocese to agree lease terms. The 3 businesses will need to invest a minimum £287,000 at 2008 prices just to make good the dilapidation because the Convent has been redundant for over 10 years. If our plan does not proceed then the Diocese may sell the land to the highest bidder for a potential housing or business development. It will fall into dereliction and be boarded up. Plans for boarding up have been temporarily suspended. In conclusion We are aware that the current Planning Application may be rejected due to lack of information. We will therefore continue to consult with the Village and Rugby Borough Council to resolve all of the potential issues. We are confident that our proposal will provide the following: • Restore the building and reopen the Convent as an educational establishment • Reopen a village shop • Help relieve traffic congestion outside The Revel School at drop-off and collection times • Improve security and prevent further vandalism • Employ local people • Provide a café for villagers to meet • Support three village families in a cooperative and sustainable village business • Work in conjunction with local producers and local farmers • Increase village property prices due to the presence of a first class school with nursery, village shop and pubs. The Parish Plan of 2006 survey indicated that over 99% of respondents used the village shop and stated “Any redevelopment of redundant existing buildings - whether for residential, agricultural or industrial use - must ideally seek to maintain the rural scene . . . there should be no further new-build of larger or high cost housing”which restoration and continued use of the Convent would prevent. Finally, we hope that our letter re-assures you that the intentions of all 3 of our businesses will not damage but enhance our village community and indeed a village and a community that we find is a very special place to bring up our children. We would like to assure you, the Parish Council that our intentions are good and to this end would request thatif you have any concerns, however small, that you contact us to discuss the proposal. Our names, addresses and contact numbers are below. It is very important to us that you all to feel comfortable to discuss this application. We remain committed to restoring the former Convent and save it from dereliction and potential redevelopment. Sara Chambers The Old School House, 1 Brockhurst Lane, Monks Kirby CV23 0RA Tel 833 477 Naomi Hill Beechwood House, 24 Brockhurst Lane, Monks Kirby CV23 0RA Tel 833 053 Maurice Hartnett The Headmasters House, 38 Brockhurst Lane, Monks Kirby CV23 0RA Tel 832 321

Artisan Bakery The proposed bakery will be run on Slow Food principles which are that good food should be produced sustainably and that producers should be paid a fair price. Slow Food members encourage the use of rare and unusual breeds or varieties of produce to encourage biodiversity and in particular promote the use of local foods and traditional processes. This means the bakery will not use additives, improvers or the Chorleywood baking process and most of the flour will be locally sourced. Bread will be handmade using a long natural fermentation process and natural flours. The proposed bakery is just one room, measuring 17ft x 12ft or 5.5m x 4m (22sq m) which will contain one oven, one sink, a few flour bins, one marble worktop fridge, a bread proving cabinet and one or two racks to stack the bread to cool. The proposed bakery will be run by Maurice Hartnett of The Headmasters House, 38 Brockhurst Lane who retires from his current job in June 2010. The Planning Application requests maximum operating hours from 04:00 am to 09:00 am Monday to Saturday and Sundays or Bank Holidays if required to cover weddings, village fetes and food shows like the BBC Good Food Show and Slow Food for whom Maurice already bakes. The baking hours applied for therefore cover the maximum start and end times required not the actual hours or days that he will bake bread or teach baking. The bakery will not be open to the public and the bread will be sold in the community shop adjacent or at Farmers Markets. Artisan bakery courses for up to five students taught by Maurice and an assistant and will be carried out in the bakery room. Students will meet up in the café meeting area beforehand and have lunch there before the afternoon session. Normal course hours are 09:30 - 16:30. No classes will be held on a Friday, Sunday or Monday In practice, Maurice plans to bake bread for the shop or Farmers Market just 3 days a week to have bread ready for shop opening at 7am. The bakery is a new business of an appropriate scale that requires a rural location and would diversify the local economy and provide training opportunities in a redundant educational establishment in accordance with Rugby Borough policies S1, S2, H14 and ED8. Regrading traffic here will be a fortnightly daytime delivery of essential ingredients and Maurice will run a small van which will be kept off site. All bread is handmade and the baking process does not involve the use of heavy industrial machinery/large ovens so any noise/odour will be minimal (see below). Bread will not be available to large retailers so there will be no food service lorries to or from the bakery. By the nature of the product and the fundamental role bread takes in most people's diet, an artisan bakery would

reduce traffic to and from the village If all the courses are full on any week it is expected that Maurice will have to make dough in the evening after class and refrigerate it ready to hand shape and bake in the morning so the bread is fresh for shop (note here that Maurice bakes artisan bread which has a longer preparation time than supermarket bread, has no additives or preservatives to extend shelf life or cause health problems and does not part bake and freeze to 'bake off' as is normal practice). For further information see Slow Bread leaflet overleaf. Otherwise bread will be prepared!and sometimes baked early evening. There will be no baking on a Sunday or Monday. Because the bakery will not be fully operational for a year or two it means the baking hours applied for on the form are speculative so we have listed the maximum to be permitted. Maurice wishes to bake with an electric 3 deck high crown oven with steam injection for crusty bread. Manufacturers of small ovens of this kind do not require high level outdoor flues like a large commercial bakery but a natural air vent. The oven manufacturer recommends ventilation to an external roof vent or wall with a capacity of maximum 800 cubic feet per hour replaced air through an open window or vent. In other words, 800 cubic foot is 22.7 cu metres or a room 2.5m H x 3m W x 3m L (8ft 2ins H x 9ft 10ins W x 9ft 10ins L) or! less than half a change of air per hour in the bakery which is 22sq m. or 1864 cubic foot. This is a low ventilation requirement but a reflection of traditional baking methods and not dissimilar to the venting requirements of a normal domestic oven. A sample teaching program and samples of Maurice's bread appears overleaf. It is expected that this number of courses will take a few years to get up to but we have to plan to be successful and not plan to fail. For further information contact Maurice Hartnett on 01788 832 321 or [email protected] Community Shop & Café Monks Kirby sits in the middle of the largest area of the Revel Villages without a shop. The Revel Villages consist of the parishes of Brinklow, Cathiron, Churchover, Coombe Fields, , Easenhall, Harborough Magna, Newnham Paddox, Pailton, Stretton Under Fosse, Street Ashton, ,!Willey,!Withybrook and Wolvey.!

Any kind of shopping purchase requires a trip to and from the village with the cost and environmental consequences of those choices. More often than not a basic shopping trip involves a round trip to by car Rugby, Lutterworth, Ansty Crosspoint or Walsgrave which at the minimum cost of 26.8 pence per mile costs £4.15 to £5.00 per trip in an average family car (see next page). The nearest PayPoints are at the Coop in Lutterworth or Newbold in Rugby 7 miles away.

At present, Monks Kirby has no shop, Post Office or business premises open to the public during the day where villagers can buy essentials, meet or have tea, breakfast or lunch. The Revel Villages in general have few if any shopping facilities for household essentials like toilet paper, toothpaste, batteries or a PayPoint to pay utility and other household bills. Without a shop and café-meeting area Monks Kirby is categorised by Rugby Borough Council in the!Structure Plan!as a!Main Rural Settlement and a Local Needs Settlement.

All of the seven shops or Post Offices in Monks Kirby have closed and have been redeveloped or converted into residential homes and cannot therefore be brought back into use. The one exception is the derelict butcher's shop in Bond End which is next door to the disused bus stop. Because of the uncertain situation regarding the bus service (which has had the number of buses to Monks Kirby cut substantially over the last few years and the bus shelter taken out of use), its size, condition and the fact the building is not for sale the old butcher's shop was ruled out as an option for a shop. On the other hand St Joseph's is available and already has kitchens and space for a shop, bakery and café/meeting area.

It is proposed that a shop at St Joseph's be constituted as a community shop to raise capital and help staff the shop. As a new business, a small rural shop cannot raise finance through commercial banks without a freehold or other assets to borrow against. The community shop model on the other hand raises finance through the issue of shares to the community and from low interest loans from the community. It also draws on part time and volunteer staff from the locality to make up the hours of salaried or shareholder staff. We are in consultation with the Plunkett Foundation and Warwickshire Leader to get advice and grants toward opening the shop. The first stage is to obtain planning permission and premises. The real cost of supermarket shopping. Monks Kirby is the largest rural area in Rugby Borough without a village shop.“A journey that costs 50p per mile for any transaction under £10 equals a 20% price hike per trip !. . . so leave the car at home and save money straight away." Source: Dr. Alan Hallsworth, Professor of Retailing, Surrey University School of Management A community shop at St Joseph's!meets the "basic sustainability criteria" set out in the Rugby Borough Structure Plan i.e. a school & shop.!The St Joseph's project is underpinned by!the " need to achieve sustainable development, to maximise the use of previously developed land and to reduce the need to travel and diversify the local economy". Under policy Rugby Borough Council Policy S2 St Joseph's is a "sustainable location" and a "development priority location".

A community shop at St Joseph's "requires no additional land and prevents the total or substantial loss of a key village building". It would also secure the future of a village shop in perpetuity since village share ownership would offer protection against unsuitable commercial sale, redevelopment or sudden loss through change of circumstances as experienced with closure of Monks Kirby and Pailton Post Offices since the Monks Kirby Parish Plan of 2006.

Since Monks Kirby is now largely a dormitory village, it is proposed to open the Community Shop to the public from 07:00 to 09:00 and from 12:00 or 14:30 to 19:30 at least 3 days per week using salaried and part-time staff with a view to opening from 07:00 to 19:30 6 days a week.

The Community Shop will include a small café and meeting area open to villagers and farmers to provide breakfast as well as shopping facilities in the morning and lunch or afternoon tea facilities in the afternoon. Sandwiches, hot or cold drinks and fresh fruit juices or smoothies and light lunches will be served from a servery/café counter at of side of the shop whilst essentials will be available self-service on the other side with a delicatessen counter in the middle.

Food will be made on the premises by Squisito Deli according to Slow Food principles from fresh local ingredients wherever possible. Deep fried food will not be available from the servery/café counter in the shop.

The café area will double as a meeting area for the Cookery School where students can take sit down lessons or exams and as a serviced meeting room for small village groups or Taste Workshops in association with Slow Food Warwickshire. The café/meeting area seats a maximum of 12 people and cookery school class sizes will range from a minimum of 2 to a maximum of 8 people. The café/meeting area will not be open to the public after 19:30 except for occasional food or social or club events like small birthday parties, local food or art nights and gardening clubs.

We plan to offer PayPoint and wi-fi for internet banking plus a range of facilities from dry cleaning or parcel collection to cartridge refills and recycled packaging. A survey of villagers will be taken to determine what key value items people would make a special journey to obtain so that we stock what is needed. We would like permission to host the mobile Post Office and arrange a prescription collection service from the Revel Surgery in Brinklow. Clockwise from top left; artisan sausages, artisan sausage making course, air dried ham, pasta making lesson To make all of this possible Sara Chambers, who runs Squisito Deli and will cook in the kitchens, and Maurice Hartnett, who will bake and teach baking in the bakery room and meeting area, have requested Planning consent to cook or bake in the kitchens and bakery between 8am and 11pm and 4am to 9am respectively to cover all eventualities, except for teaching days when class hours are normally 09:30 to 16:30.

The kitchens and bakery will not be open to the public. Nor is it not proposed that the kitchens or bakery will operate all days or maximum permitted hours to serve the shop or cookery school. To be sustainable the kitchens and cookery school have to be able to make food for when the Community Shop and café open, for lunch, for weddings or other village events like parties at the village hall or the school fete for example.

St Joseph's Community Shop and Brockhurst Nursery will be different from most other village shops in that the food will be freshly made (or cured in the case of bacon or hams) from local ingredients on the premises as it would have been 50 or 100 years ago. That means no lorries or juggernauts here or elsewhere.

St Joseph's Community Shop will not only serve the village and it will put back into the local economy by employing local people directly and indirectly by buying fresh local produce. Together, the project will create local jobs for 22 full time staff and 6 part time staff. The Community Shop aims to be competitive on price, service and convenience by cutting out the supermarkets ad the food packaging and distribution network but also pay local farmers and small producers a fair price which they would not otherwise get from supermarkets by producing the fresh food that any other village shop would have to buy in.

St Joseph's Community Shop aims to be not just a cornerstone to village life but a working model for other rural communities which have lost their connection to the land and each other. Clockwise from left; fresh Chocolate Meringues, artisan ice cream, café/meeting area, handmade cottage pie Cookery School projected calendar after a few years Brockhurst Nursery & Pre School

Brockhurst Day Care Nursery & Pre School will offer high quality child care for children from 6 months to 5 years. It will be run in the old St Josephs Convent, Monks Kirby, a site adjacent to The Revel Primary School, Monks Kirby. As such it will offer childcare to the siblings of children already at The Revel Primary school as well as children from the village and surrounding areas. Brockhurst Day Care Nursery and Pre School will also offer extended child care services for Primary school aged children from 5 to 11 years from 7:00am until the start of school, and then from the end of school until 6:30pm. We will escort the children to and from school at the appropriate times. We will therefore offer a complete child care solution for working parents with one or more children, including when those children start school at the Revel Primary school. Brockhurst Day Care Nursery and Pre School will initially have places for up to 70 children. This is the same number of children as those who attended St Josephs School. Normal operating hours will be 7am to 6:30pm, Monday through Friday - with observance of all major national holidays. School holiday’s clubs and activities will be offered in non term time . Brockhurst Day Care Nursery and Pre School exists to provide Premier child care services that are aimed at enhancing traditional day care methodologies and integrating extracurricular interests (such as arts and crafts, dance, theatre and gymnastics) into one comprehensive program. All of our learning and child care services employ technology, partnerships, professional services and other activities that support and promote higher learning. Brockhurst Day Care Nursery and Pre School will locate its outside play space in the garden to the south of the buildings, leaving the area at the front of the buildings (formally a playground) to be used as a car park and drop off zone. Although we will reserve this for our own clients, those with siblings at The Revel school will be able to park their cars in the car park whilst dropping off, event if they do not take advantage of our extended services.

As we will be offering extended services to pupils of the Revel School, with parents able to drop off any time from 7:00 am and collect up to 6:30pm this will reduce the number of cars in the village at normal school drop off and pick up times (9:00am and 3:15pm) by removing the cars of those using our facilities. The child care industry as a whole is highly needed. However the Revel area (The area bounded by the M6, M69 and A5) itself is growing and has few licensed child care facilities. Brockhurst Day Care Nursery and Pre School intend to fill this local market need.

With the costs of housing continuing to rise each year, the typical British family now requires dual or supplemental incomes. This trend has created a need for quality child care services. We do not see this model changing in the foreseeable future. In fact, based on the growth in the Revel and Rugby area, specifically the new Coton meadows and Avon fields, we expect the need to increase.

During an Economic downturn, previous experience during recent downturns shows that the need for childcare increases as more families determine the need for both parents to work in order to generate sufficient income.

Brockhurst Day Care Nursery and Pre School offers services which are vitally important in today's fast paced, dual- income world. As an increasing number of families have become dependent on two incomes, the need for quality child care has skyrocketed. According to local Business Statistics, 84.6% of licensed child care facilities succeed and make a profit in their 1st year of operation. Nationally, this number is 66.7%. Right Overall area of Brockhurst Nursery & PreScool buildings; Left areas changing consent View from rear of Convent St Joseph's Convent Planning Submission

contact Sara Chambers t/a Squisito Deli, Monks Kirby BBC Good Food Show & Slow Food UK Bursary Award Winner 2008-2009 Tel 01788 833 477 Mobile 07824 314 235