Hawkshead seeks a new post office (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Hawkshead seeks a new post office
4:50pm Wednesday 1st February 2012 in Business
HAWKSHEAD could be close to getting a Post Office service back following the sudden closure of the village outlet.
Post Office bosses descended on the Lakes community last Thursday after The Westmorland Gazette reported that the Post Office and shop was shutting.
There was a burst of activity in a bid to save the village lifeline and on Tuesday the managers of the village’s Red Lion pub expressed an interest in hosting the service.
“The village needs a post office and there has been lots of disruption already since it closed and so we have made inquiries to see if it would be feasible to have it here,” said pub manager Lynn Larkin.
The Main Street Post Office and shop, which had a combined annual turnover of £260,500, is now on the market for sale with a £99,950 price tag.
Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron, who has been working with the Post Office, parish council and local people to restore Post Office services to Hawkshead as ‘a matter of urgency’, said: “Many people in Hawkshead rely on it for their banking or their pension, and to ask them to travel to Coniston or Ambleside is unfair.
“As a community we will not take this lying down, and I am determined that a full post office must be returned as soon as possible.”
Mr Farron said that the Post Office was hoping to transfer the tenancy of the Post Office to new tenants and that people had already expressed an interest in becoming new post masters.
“If that does not happen immediately then the shop could be re-opened as just a Post Office or there could be an outreach service with another business in the village, but that option would only be a stopgap while we work to ensure a solution.”
Hawkshead Post Office and shop is believed to have closed as it was no longer ‘financially viable’.
Mr Farron blamed a lack of affordable housing and a large number of second homes for the closure.
