A community share offer to give people chance to invest in a long-established shop in a Pembrokeshire seaside town has fallen through.

Since July, £130,000 had been pledged by more than 100 people to secure the popular and much-loved Wholefoods of Newport which was on the market.

A team of local residents was taking Project Wholefoods forward and it was hoped the scheme would emulate the successs of the purchase of Havards in Newport, which became the UK’s first community-owned hardware shop in 2022.

Sadly, however, the project is now not going ahead.

In a message to supporters, the team said: “We are no longer able to proceed with the community purchase of Wholefoods of Newport.

"Extremely disappointed"

 “On reflection, Clare and Dori – the current owners – feel unable to make our offer work. We are extremely disappointed, especially as we had already raised more than £130,000, and were well on our way to a successful conclusion.

“We remain committed to the idea of having a wholefoods shop as part of the retail ecosystem in Newport. We wish Clare and Dori well for the future, and we hope that their plans include a successful future for the shop.”

All investments will be returned, the team assured.

Thanks to investors

Wholefoods of Newport’s Clare and Dori offered thanks on their Facebook page to all the investors and assured they would ‘continue to do their best’ for the community.

“ We are really very sad and disappointed it could not work,” they said,

"We were initially very excited but then found that it was just not going to work for us or our team.

"We would like to thank Project Wholefoods and their talented team for all the effort and hard work they put into the project. There were some truly special people involved and we know a lot of work was involved.

Trade will continue

"We would like to assure everyone our shop will continue to trade and develop until a suitable buyer can be found.

"We will be continuing to move forward until that time, and are seeking support to revamp a bit.

"With the wonderful team we have here at WON and with your continued support, we can stay a strong community shop until we can pass that treasure on.

"We feel blessed to have been handed this wonderful shop from our predecessors and will be excited to be able to hand it on to the next Wholefoods owners."