North Shropshire’s MP will meet the former sub-postmaster of Hadnall Post Office with the aim of kick-starting a campaign to re-instate the service.
The post office closed its doors in March last year despite a lengthy battle by Conservative MP Owen Paterson and villagers who fought hard to keep the facility at Hadnall Village Stores open.
An action group was formed and a 1,000 signature petition handed to Post Office bosses in support of the service.
And now Mr Paterson will meet with former sub-postmaster Harmesh Jassel on Monday, August 2, to see if they can put a case together for bringing the facility back to the community.
The branch, which was replaced by a hosted service three afternoons a week, was one of several post offices supported by the Chronicle’s The Last Post? campaign.
Royal Mail officials made the move as part of a national programme of cuts which saw 27 branches in the county threatened with being closed or replaced with an outreach facility.
Mr Paterson told the Chronicle: “It was absolutely infuriating that Hadnall Post Office was closed. It was really a model example of a thriving village shop built around the post office.“Harmesh Jassel is a really good guy and he had everything you could possibly want: a post office, off licence, fresh food.
“There was really strong local support and a number of businesses were using the post office.
“I want to see if we can get a campaign going to see if we could get the post office service revived and I am meeting Mr Jassel to see if we can put a case together.
“People are now having to go off to Clive to use the post office, which is ridiculous.”
Mr Paterson added he thought the service would be well used by businesses on the Sansaw Business Park.
Mr Jassel declined to comment until after the meeting.
by Charlotte Hester