ALMOST £10,000 is waiting to be collected by the 289 people who applied for shares to bring Cred-iton’s bookshop into community ownership.

Shareholders can now claim tax relief at 30% on their holdings, worth £6 on every share purchased.

Company secretary John Skrine said: “We’ve now completed the formalities with HMRC to comply with the Enterprise Investment Scheme, so shareholders who’d like to claim tax relief now just need to ask for the form which we will complete and leave at the bookshop for collection or post it to them if necessary.”

The bookshop is repaying the confidence of investors with results for the first six months’ trading 5% higher than the same time in 2013.

Bookshop chairman Ken McKechnie said: “We’re plea-sed with the way things are going and people who have not yet taken the opportunity to share ownership of the shop will be able to claim tax relief at 30% in our second share issue, now open.

“People have clearly res-ponded positively to the idea of a local business where the whole profit goes to making a better bookshop.

“Our volunteers help not just behind the till, but also running school book fairs and other events.

“We’re always open to ideas for activities with a literary flavour, or which simply encourage more people to enjoy reading books.”

The bookshop supplied books and ran a pop-up stall at the first Cullompton Book Festival in May, and has run several events with local authors and speakers.