30/05/2026
Following on from our previous post about how quiet the village seemed, it's fair to say we've now been through what we always expected to be the first genuinely busy week of the year. I think most people would agree that, yes, it has been a busy week.
We did discuss extending our opening hours. However, with only Chris, Wendy, and occasionally Sam helping out, we felt that trying to extend hours significantly would likely lead to burnout in the long term. We also quite like seeing each other occasionally outside of work!
That said, some of the trends we've mentioned before continue. Sales of milk, bread, and eggs remain lower than we would traditionally expect, and newspaper sales are still, frankly, dreadful. The sales of World Cup sticker packs are currently helping to subsidise stocking newspapers, so they'll remain available for the time being.
Our new pre-order services have started slowly, but we're hopeful they will grow as more people become aware of them. As a reminder:
🥩 Fresh meat can be ordered by Friday for collection on Tuesday.
🥧 Products from Botham's of Whitby can be ordered by Thursday for Saturday collection, or by Monday for Wednesday collection.
The news that the Fisherhead car park will become operational before the main summer season is something we very much welcome. To be honest, the arrangements appear to be largely what we expected following the previous mismanagement of the site.
The ability for cottage guests to pre-book a limited number of parking spaces for the duration of their stay is probably the fairest way for the car park to operate moving forward. We hope people respect the landowner's decision and that all of the silliness—and at times outright maliciousness—that has occurred in the past is now put behind us.
A considerable amount of money has been invested in resurfacing and improving the site, and we genuinely believe the owners have the best interests of the village at the heart of their decisions. At the end of the day, as we've all learned at some point that trying to please everyone usually results in pleasing no one.
Having vehicles parked at Fisherhead will certainly help ease some of the pressure on the council-run car parks. However, it remains clear that the village's overall parking provision is still no longer adequate for the level of demand we now see. The decision to cease permit sales through The Post Office is equally baffling and is an issue we have repeatedly raised with the council. We suggested that the RingGo system could be amended so that one zone covered both car parks, which would go some way towards addressing the current problems. Unfortunately, this proposal appears to have been ignored.
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