Village Post Office plan

MORE than 100 Buxted residents packed into the village hall last week to discuss plans for a parish community post office.

MORE than 100 Buxted residents packed into the village hall last week to discuss plans for a parish community post office.

Villagers voted to set up a working party and prepare a post office business plan ahead of a formal planning application.

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However, the meeting held in the Reading Room became heated at times as residents expressed concerns about the effect a new post office would have on the existing village store, which housed the local post office until it closed last month.

Villagers heard how a future post office would be set up in a steel cabin and located on the corner of the High Street and Framfield Road.

Parish chairman Alison Crowe told the meeting that a new post office would have to sell other products if it was to survive, but added that it would not compete with the village shop.

'Simple post offices are shown time and time again to fail,' she said. 'This is an opportunity to add to what is available in the village, but there is no proposal to open a competing village shop. People want things that are not already available in the village.'

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She said that community post offices had a good record for succeeding. 'There are hundreds of community schemes established across the country,' she said, 'and they hardly ever fail. If a village buys into an initiative it shouldn't go bust.'

Goods and services considered for the proposed post office included Sunday newspapers, tea and coffee and internet access.

However, locals expressed fears that their 'very successful shop', run by John Patel, could disappear if a new post office sold similar, if different, produce.

One resident said: 'Mr Patel has got to replace 20,000 worth of business. A post office brings people into the shop and if you can't bring them into the shop you can't sell them anything.'

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Another resident added: 'I'm not clear why Mr Patel didn't want to do this in the first place if it is viable.'

Mrs Crowe said that Mr Patel who was not at the meeting gave personal reasons for closing the post office, but added: 'We would all have preferred it if the post office had stayed in the shop. But if the shop shuts it will not have been because of a community post office.'

Mr Patel said: 'I am not offended by the idea of re-siting a post office in the village but if they have any notion of having a retail side which competes with my current trade, I would consider closing down this shop.

'They have to be very careful here and make sure they protect not just my own interests but also the tea room down the road. I would not give any notice; I could close down this place tomorrow. I'm quite prepared to go ahead with that.'

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