Public view Keelham Farm Shop plans for Skipton (From Craven Herald)

Public view Keelham Farm Shop plans for Skipton

3:10pm Thursday 23rd August 2012 in News

Keelham Farm Shop’s plans for a new “eco-barn of the 21st century” were unveiled to the public as part of a public consultation on Thursday.

The family-run firm – based at Thornton, near Bradford – wants to build a £3 million super-size farm shop on the site of the disused Nicholas Smith garage on Gargrave Road, Skipton .

If approved, the scheme would create 60 jobs As part of the consultation, the Keelham team transformed a room of Skipton Auction Mart into a fruit and vegetable market and offered food tasting samples from a selection of Keelham’s 400 local producers and farmers.

Visitors were able to view detailed visuals which highlighted the Keelham team, its apprenticeship programmes and benefits of working for the company, alongside illustrations of the proposed elements of the new scheme including farm shop, live animal croft and café.

Victoria Robertshaw, who runs Keelham Farm Shop with her brother, James, said: “We were overwhelmed by the positive response from the dozens of people that came and made the effort either to find out more about the scheme or show their support.

“I’m really glad we had this opportunity to give people a flavour of what Keelham is all about and visitors seemed genuinely impressed by our products and our plans.

“James and I, as well as other members of the team, had a fantastic day meeting members of the community who we hope will one day become valuable customers of our new store in Skipton and we look forward to building these relationships over the next few months as well as developing a network of local suppliers in and around Skipton who will become very much part of the next chapter of Keelham’s story.”

If the application is approved, building work will begin in spring 2013 and the new farm shop and activity barn will be open for business in early 2014. For more information, visit keelhamfarmshop.co.uk.