Pinvin Post Office closes leaving family in turmoil (From Evesham Journal)

Pinvin Post Office closes leaving family in turmoil

4:28pm Thursday 27th November 2008 in News By Katie Thompson

A VILLAGE postmistress fears for her family’s survival now her post office has closed its doors for good.

Pinvin Post Office shut on Tuesday (25) after it was earmarked for closure as part of a national programme of cut backs by Post Office Ltd.

Sub-postmistress Gurleen Kaur Singh is worried they will not be able to make ends meet in the current economic climate.

She said: “I have two kids, one at school and one younger. I don’t know how we are going to survive. It is quite a worrying time for me.”

Emotions ran high as she served her customers for the final time on Tuesday (25).

“It was a really bad day. It is very sad and in these times of a recession it even worse for the shop. It has gone really quiet. Nobody is coming here,” Mrs Singh said.

“Trying to run the shop without the post office is really going to be hard.”

The nearest post office for customers now is in Pershore.

Mrs Singh added: “The customers are sad because they do not want to go that far. Parking is a problem and they have to walk and stand in a queue.

“Here, we never closed at lunch time so customers could come when ever they needed to.”

Mrs Singh and her husband took over the post office last year and did not know it would be earmarked for closure.

In August, Post Office Limited announced it was planning to close 10 branches in South Worcestershire.

A six week period of public consultation followed and the final decisions were announced last month.

None of the branches earmarked for closure were saved.