Mileham post office taken on by Norfolk RCC charity

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A rural post office near Dereham has become one of the first in the country to be taken over by a charity in order to save it from closure.

Mileham post office will now be run by Norfolk Rural Community Council (RCC) after an eight-month battle to win a licence from Post Office Ltd.

It was under threat of closure after its postmaster decided to retire.

"This was an ideal opportunity for us to help a rural community," said Peter Smith from Norfolk RCC.

"The Post Office wanted it to happen, but it was a case of how can we within their systems make this work and they've bent over backwards to find a way in which we can take on the management," he added.

Norfolk RCC has been managing the community-owned shop where the post office is based since 2009 through its trading arm Thinking Rural CIC.

The shop management team of Colin Fisher and Maxine Brown will continue to be behind the counter at the store and the post office, along with a team of volunteers from the village.

Community

As part of a social enterprise scheme, any profit that is made at the post office will be put back into the community.

"It means that the service is kept and it's an important service to that community because the average age is slightly older in Mileham," said Peter.

"It's a busy little post office and if they'd lost it it would mean that they'd have to go to the next village. Some would say it's not that far away but there's no public transport and not everybody has transport to get there.

"The other great thing about this is it now gives us an opportunity to look at other villages because we've set a precedent.

"The Post Office gets a lot of stick and I think it's unfair in terms of 'they just want to close all our rural branches' - they don't.

"There's quite a long list of branches they're trying to get back open again, but now we're in a position to help out."