Supporters ask RM to change their tune on Langley Records

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Supporters ask Royal Mail to change their tune on Langley Records, West Molesey

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People from all over the world contributed to the 2,357 signatures on a petition to save a beloved record shop from closure.

Langley Records, based in Walton Road, West Molesey, is owned by 79-year-old Geoff Langley and has been there for 42 years.

The premises is owned by the Royal Mail and the postal service now wants to build a customer service point and toilets where the record shop currently stands. A planning application was submitted to the council on February 13.

Since then people who know and love the shop have rallied together to fight the application.

A petition calling on the council to reject the application, set up by Fiona Wilson, whose husband helps Mr Langely in the shop on occasion, was just 143 signatures shy of 2,500 before the council stopped welcoming comments on April 3.

Steve Langley, Mr Langley's son, said: "I worked there as a teenager with my best mate and my sister. Last time mum and dad went away (mid 80s) I ran it for him, probably the longest dad ever left the shop. The thought of him getting thrown out with nothing makes me sick, I have so many good memories of that shop."

Mr Langley, from West Molesey, left the Army in 1962, after two years, and set up a record business at a different site before arriving in Walton Road.

Royal Mail spokesman Sally Hopkins said: "It is our intention to use this extra space to create a modern customer service point for our customers in both Esher and Molesey who visit us to collect any items of mail that we were not able to deliver to them, or leave with a neighbour, because they were out."

When asked what he would do if he was forced to leave the shop he said: "It wouldn't be like that. I won't allow that at all."

After a new contract was offered with 300 new clauses, he said: "I wrote to the Queen, had three members of Parliament involved."