Post office shop plea

Parish councillors will recommend to the Royal Borough that the old post office in Cookham Dean is kept as a potential retail unit.

The post office in Bigrith Lane closed two years ago and a part-time service has been functioning from the Jolly Farmer pub since August last year.

No tenants have been found for the shop and owner Jacqueline Hyland-Power applied to change the use of the ground floor from retail to residental.

Parish councillors were reluctant to allow the change and voted overwhelmingly to recommend refusal of the plans on Tuesday last week.

The council accepted that a post office would not necessarily be profitable and Cllr David Ricardo said: "Post Offices are a dying breed - people pay their bills on the computer and have other ways of looking after their letters."

But councillors were concerned that once the building becomes residential the possiblity of a shop will be lost forever.

Vice chairman Cllr Mike Barnes summed up the council's feelings and said: ""When you close the shops in the village, thw village dies.

"It is very sad."