Maesbury Post Office
11 January 2007
Owen was in Maesbury recently to visit the new Post Office and shop, opened recently by Fiona MacDonald and Iain Campbell. Alongside the Montgomery Canal, Canal Central, as it is named, provides a tea room, self-catering holiday accommodation, a shop selling local produce, fresh dairy products, meat and vegetables, alcohol, stationery and cards. They also cater for canal tourists with canal equipment and provide a wet room and car park for canoeists. There are broadband internet facilities and a digital projector and screen for canal businesses.
They act as a polling station when needed, saving the local school from having to close for the day and also as a local community meeting room, which is vital for Maesbury, which has no village hall.
Finally, there is the Post Office, providing ebay access, personal office and banking, but occupying a fraction of the total space (0.46%).
Owen Paterson said “This is a splendid example for the Post Office network, which has an incalculable social value and with imagination, a really positive future.. Fiona and Iain have made this shop a centre for locals and tourists alike. They are also keeping a rural Post Office open and making it pay. This Government has allowed the closure of thousands of Post Offices in rural areas. With a few incentives, rather than the removal of their services, other enterprising young people would take up the challenge.”
