Gedney Hill bakery petition reaches more than 800 names

A petition set up against the impending closure of a prized bakery has gathered more than 800 signatures.

It was announced last month that the bakery in Gedney Hill’s McColl’s will close upon the store being leased to supermarket chain Morrisons.

After initial frustrations were aired, a petition was set up outside the store in a bid to reverse the decision.

David Ingle, who is a member of Gedney Hill and District Memorial Hall, organised the fightback and is pleased with the reception it has gathered.

“The response has been very very good,” he said.

“We set up the petition on the public path outside the store so we were catching people who actually shop in and use the place.

“I thought it would make more impact if we caught the people who actually use the bakery.”

Since attracting 256 signatures on its first day alone, more than 800 have joined the cause at the time of publication.

“A good 60 or 70% of them said that if they close the bakery, which is primarily what they come for, they wouldn’t shop there again,” said Mr Ingle.

“There’s been people from Wisbech, Spalding, Peterborough and Holbeach come to sign it. It would be nice to get to 1,000.

“We’re not going to give up, we’re going to keep trying.”

Coun Ken James, chairman of the Gedney Hill Parish Council, says plans to continue the protest are ongoing.

“The parish council have actually written to them, and they’ve come back saying they would have an online conference of sorts - but they never have,” he said.

“The parish council will carry on to lobby them and basically have some sort of conversation.

“We’ll carry on talking to them next week because they’ve been lax with communications. Or maybe they’ve just been avoiding it, I don’t know.

“Absolutely everybody is against this, and a lot of people have written privately as well as joining in with what we’ve done.

“The villagers have done very, very well on it.”