Schoolchildren’s delight as their special artwork takes pride of place on brand new Central England Co-op Food Store in Norfolk

Posted by james brindle | Published: 29/12/2020

A group of schoolchildren in a Norfolk town have visited a brand-new food store to unveil a special piece of artwork they created which now adorns the shop.

The Central England Co-op Food Store in Station Road, Reepham, which opened its doors last month creating 19 jobs, welcomed children from Reepham Primary School on their last day of term to see the artwork they had worked hard to create displayed on the new store.

The design, entitled ‘The Three Churches’, had been created by Year Three and Four pupils at the school as part of a local history project.

Teacher Karen Phelps said: “Years Three and Four have been studying the history of Reepham this term. We started looking at the Anglo-Saxon settlement, based around the churches; there are three on the same site, two of which stand today and the third is a ruin in the grounds. 

“This is quite rare and special and comes from the fact that the churchyard was the point where three different parishes met. A tale of three sisters with their three farms was told to illustrate this; it is now the town sign. 

“This term we have walked around Reepham looking at the buildings and how they have changed both in use and architecture and we spent a long time looking at the church, so when Central England Co-op asked for artwork for their new store this seemed the obvious choice, especially as we have close ties with the vicar who usually does a weekly assembly, and we use the church for history and RE and also a carol concert each year.

“Mr Warne leads art in our school, and he drove the project which was done by mainly Year 4 with help from Year 3. The children really enjoyed producing the artwork and are delighted to have it on the new Central England Co-op store in Reepham so they can see it every time they go past.”

The new store in opened following an investment of over £500,000 and features include self-scan till points, a bicycle repair station, a free hot and cold water refill station and phone charging area.

For Store Manager Brad Tuckfield, building links with the community in the town has been vitally important and therefore having a permanent feature created by the local school as part of the store made him particularly proud.

He said: “We have had such a wonderful welcome from the community in Reepham since we opened the store and are so proud to be a part of the town.

“I am delighted to be able to display the fantastic piece of artwork created by children at Reepham Primary School on a landmark which has such resonance in the town, and it gives all the team a boost to see the artwork every time they come to work.”

The Reepham Co-operative food store is open from 7am to 10pm, Monday to Sunday.

Notes to editors

About Central England Co-operative

Central England Co-operative is one of the largest independent retail co-operative societies in the UK with interests in food, funeral, floral and property investment.

Co-operatives have always been there for their communities; they were formed to protect them and help them flourish.  

Our 7,900 colleagues who serve Members and customers work hard to ensure that co-operative values, principles and spirit flow through everything we do to help support and improve our local communities.

Owned by hundreds of thousands of Members, we have over 430 trading outlets across 16 counties including West Midlands, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. 

We are proud of our reputation for ethical business practices and corporate responsibility.

We invest a percentage of our trading profit into local communities through our Community Dividend Fund scheme, have donated over £1.4 million to our corporate charity partner Dementia UK and also operate a pioneering food redistribution partnership with FareShare Midlands so unsold food goes to those in need.

Visit www.centralengland.coop for more information or follow us on Facebook or Twitter using @mycoopfood

Press office contacts: Rob Smyth and James Brindle

Phone - 01543 421390

Email - publicrelations@centralengland.coop