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18
Jul 2024
Key date looms in ‘diabolical’ Knaresborough Post Office saga
A business group has called for a decision to be made as quickly as possible on the future of Knaresborough Post Office.
The national Post Office announced plans last month to relocate the service with the same postmaster inside Lloyds Pharmacy on the High Street.
But the old building closed the following day when it was repossessed by its landlord, the property development firm Depho Estates Ltd, leaving residents having to travel to Starbeck for the nearest full postal service.
It subsequently emerged that Nottingham-based VPS PVT Ltd, which ran the post office, entered voluntary liquidation on June 13 owing £253,000 to HMRC and £124,000 to other creditors, according to Companies House documents. Its sole director is Ankur Singh.
A Depho spokesperson said it would be “flabbergasting” to allow Mr Singh to reopen in the town considering the amount of money his company owed when it went into liquidation. They added at least two people had expressed an interest in running the site and it could be reopened in days.
People have until July 29 to give feedback on the Post Office proposal for the service to move into the pharmacy under the same postmaster.
The issue was debated at this week’s meeting of Knaresborough & District Chamber, at which chamber director Peter Lacey said it was “diabolical” for the town to be left without a Post Office. He said:
July 29 is a key date because it’s the end of the consultation. We recognise there is a due process but if there is a solution ready, then take it. We can’t leave a market town like Knaresborough a day longer than absolutely necessary without a Post Office.
Fellow chamber director Charlotte Gale added there was an opportunity on the feedback exercise to give “additional comments’, in which residents could make wider suggestions about the future of the Post Office rather than just whether the old postmaster should return.
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