THE owners of a village shop have warned it will have to close if they are forced to shut the post office.

Gurleen Kaur Singh and her husband Parvinder fear they will not be able to keep their Pinvin shop open if they lose the contract to run a post office from the premises.

Users of the branch, near Pershore, do not want to see their post office close, and have been showing their support by signing a petition.

“If the post office is not there then we have to close,” said Mr Singh.

“I would like to stay open because people depend on us. There is a woman who said if the post office closes she does not know how she can get her pension. Her children live far away and she has no means of getting anywhere else.”

Pinvin post office is one of 10 branches in south Worcestershire facing closure after last week’s Government announcement.

It is part of a national closure programme to reduce the number of post offices in the country by 2,500 following a fall in people using them.

The closures are based on access criteria which states 99 per cent of the population should be within three miles and 90 per cent of the population within one mile of their nearest post office.

One user of the post office in Pershore Terrace, Pinvin, is Wayne Allchurch.

He visits fortnightly to post letters and said: “It is not very good at all because to use the one in Pershore you have to pay for parking, here it is free.”

If the post office closes, after a six-week period of public consultation, the nearest branches will be Pershore and Lower Moor.

Both would require driving or using public transport.

Pershore Mayor, Ken Rowe, lives in Spion Kop, Pinvin, and said: “I think it is tragic.

“I live on the old folks estate just across the road from the post office and a lot of old folks will suffer because of it.

“Pinvin probably has an average age of 65 and it is the only contact they really get.

“None of us can afford to let them close us, it is the hub of the village.”

The Post Office wants to hear from users who have concerns over the proposals.

To express your views on the issue, write to Mark Partington, network development manager, c/o National Consultation Team, Freepost consultation team.