The owners of the last shop in an Orkney village want to move into a former church after outgrowing their current home.
A planning application which would see Evie‘s Mistra Shop and Post Office relocated into the Evie Church building is now with council planners for consideration.
However, along with moving the shop and post office the owner hopes to create a tearoom and a community space within the former place of worship.
Damien Miller said the planning process is running alongside the process of purchasing the new building from The Church of Scotland.
As such the plans aren’t quite “signed, sealed, and delivered” at this stage.
But, if all goes well it could be just the beginning.
Why Evie shop has to move to survive
Mistra Store has been up and running in the village for just over 60 years.
While there used to be other shops along the road that runs through the small town in the north of Orkney’s West Mainland, these have fallen away over the years.
This leaves the convenience store as the village’s only shop, serving not just Evie village but the surrounding area.
Mr Miller and his partner only took over three years ago.
While they have improved the shop in that time, he said their ambition to turn into more of a community hub has been hampered by a lack of parking spaces.
The former church of Scotland would solve that issue with 22 spaces available.
He said: “When we took, we had plans to make it more of a community hub and a place where people to could come and meet.
“Eventually we would have turned it into a community interest organisation, but the short version of the story is we can’t do that at our current location.
“Permissions around car parking have stopped us developing the shop we’re currently in.
“But we became aware of the church becoming available.
“The building is a bit bigger, and more importantly it’s more modern, with 22 car parking spaces.
“So, it would allows us to introduce all the plans we’ve got.
“Essentially what we’re planning is to move the shop and Post Office down there and, at the same time create a tea room.
“We would also we’ll have a little room that’s going to be used for a community space.
“That could be used for the mother and toddler group or if there’s a funeral then the family can use it as a quiet space, just that kind of idea.”
Could bar be revived once shop moves?
These aren’t the end of their plans, however.
Mr Miller said he is hoping they can make the new building completely sustainable and carbon neutral.
These future plans would also include installing EV chargers on-site and offering mountain bike hire.
As for the old building, he said they are considering reintroducing a bar where the shop in Evie currently is – although this is only one of a few ideas.
Mistra previously had a bar upstairs in its current building but that ran into issues with fire escapes.
“There’s a whole lot of ideas, but it’s going to take time”, he said.
“It’s probably a couple of years away before we can even look at that.”
“We’re not really sure what we’re going to do with the old space yet.”
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