"The whole of our scheme is dependent on funding from somewhere. We started with all the ideas, looking for funding, and went to Leader Plus, a European Community scheme that has more of a commercial slant than LHI - you have to show that you are definitely bringing some commercial advantage.

Although we believe we will ultimately bring commercial advantage to the area, it’s not the main objective of what we are doing since the projects are all community driven. They suggested we might find LHI more appropriate - and we did.

The grant process was very straightforward - perhaps because I’ve been in business and doing projects for a long time. The guidance notes were very useful, and the LHI team were very available and approachable, which is important for this sort of venture. And they did a form of "quality control" on our application - we were able to check out drafts with them, which they would look at and say "Not like that, but like this".

And then, to make sure that we’d covered everything, we went to an LHI ‘AwayDay’ Surgery in Mere, where we spent time with Stephanie and Michelle, the regional adviser and administrator.

The surgery really put it into shape, and we were very pleased to find out that we were able to include our plans to refurbish what used to be a bus shelter. That was outside the terms of reference of LHI, but did qualify for some of the additional money offered by Nationwide.

The shelter was built in 1953 to celebrate the Coronation of the Queen. The shelter, sadly, does not blend in at all with its surroundings, but now we are going to be able to improve its external appearance to blend in with the local vernacular architecture.

The inside will be converted to become a central source of information for the local community about what is going on in their village. We will also be putting up a map there for our many visitors, showing our village heritage trail, which will be complemented by a small guidebook available for sale in our local shops.

I’ve applied for other grants along the way, but the process has usually been done ‘by remote control’ with no detailed guidance at all and nobody to talk to directly. The LHI was a refreshing change."