Saturday 14 January 2012

Another one bites the dust!


Last night's temperature was -2 celsius and sleeping with the bedroom window open meant that I was woken up several times by feeling cold only to find the duvet had slipped!

Well, it's a sad day in our village today as yet another amenity has been lost, namely the Post Office. We had signed a petition believing only the sorting office was closing but no, the whole thing closes after today.

Irregardless of what has been reported in the local newspaper, we know the post master quite well and the cut is due to funding. The shop in which the Post Office currently resides, can only keep it fully open if they are prepared to pay for an assistant to run it for 40 hours a week. As good a shop as they are, they can't afford it.

A Post Office local was the next option but such a service is very restricted and the PO would only fund an assistant for 10 hours a week, the other 30 hours would have to be covered by the shop owners, so again, no use. We do have another two Post Office's (one full the other a PO local inside a garage) within driving distance but for those who don't drive (and there are many who don't) as well as the sick and the elderly, it is a very sad day indeed. Where are they supposed to get their pension money from, post parcels or obtain the myriad things that our good PO provided?

This closure comes on top of our 2 local infant schools being closed last July to reform in-between us and the next village as a small primary. There are rumours that the butcher is also thinking of closing (and not selling as a going concern), what next?

The local stores that housed the PO has applied for planning permission to extend their shop into the area previously occupied by the PO counter and sorting room – hopefully that will be granted. They also have a lottery machine but some one said that as it is attached to the PO, it will be lost (not sure about that as many shops have the lottery machine that are not PO's).

Ah well, still a good village to live in, good shop, currently a butcher's (plus the one I visit in the next village), a pub/restaurant and a fantastic medical centre. We have lovely neighbours and fantastic scenery. It does make you wonder though, as we all age, what exactly will be left.

3 comments:

  1. When I was first married I lived in a wonderful shopping area- I lived in a mill workers terrace, in a warren of streets of similar housing, that all ran off one ' main street'. We had a greengrocer, a butcher, a hardware shop, a fish and chip shop, a pub, a newsagent, a baker, an off licence, a chemist, a launderetee, a second-hand shop and 2 'corner shops' on that street. At the end of the street was a primary school, and the small adjoining street was designated as a ' play street' during the day, as there was no playground. I used all of those shops, most of them on a regular basis and it was wonderful- a real little community. Gradually people stopped using the little shops as more supermarkets were built, and the shops closed- it was very sad.

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  2. So sad , this is one of my reasons for keeping it local...................its use it or lose it unfortunately

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  3. A sign of very bad times to come, when those rural shops can no longer be supported.
    I feel sorry for everyone that sees those shops disappear from their neighbourhoods.
    It will isolate older and infirm elderly even more. Sad to hear that your PO is closed. Another community essential lost forever. Sad, sad indeed!

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