Village post office reopens (From Wiltshire Times)

Village post office reopens

9:46am Tuesday 6th January 2009 in News By James Williams

VILLAGERS’ nine-month wait for a postal service came to an end yesterday.

The former Dilton Marsh Post Office, located in High Street, managed to avoid closure in December 2007 when the Post Office announced that 2,500 branches were to be closed nationwide, but the two postmasters resigned in March 2008 due to ill health, leaving the village with no postal service.

Since then, the postmistress at The Ham Post Office in Westbury, Lesley Jordan, tried to take over the service and run it from the Spar in Dilton Marsh, which she also manages.

In August she received confirmation that her application to open a new post office in Dilton had been successful and in November an official opening date was announced.

Mrs Jordan said: “We’ve been pleased with the support we’ve received on the first day. I was in the post office until about 1.30pm and its been really busy.

“We still need to make a few more people aware that we’ve opened because we will need the support from the local community, especially in the current economic climate when small shops are very vulnerable.

“We’ve had quite a big refurbishment to enable us to install the new post office counter. It was such a good feeling to see all the equipment in its place after such a long wait.”

The Spar shop is open from 7am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 9am to 6pm on Sunday. The post office will be open from 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays.