A Perthshire village will lose its post office and only shop this summer, leading to calls for management to do more to protect rural branches.
The Forgandenny branch will shut at the end of June when Jim Johnston and his wife Jacqueline retire after running the village shop for nearly 33 years.
Jim does not expect anyone to take over the outlet and believes too many services have been withdrawn from post offices to make them a viable business.
The shop’s main customers in recent years have been Strathallan school children and Jim fears other services still provided by the Post Office could also be withdrawn.
Jim said: “It won’t sell, I don’t think anyone will take it over.
“Post Offices don’t pay enough. The government is to blame for a lot of it.
“They took away all our services from the Post Office. When you went back years ago we used to do lots of things but that’s all gone now.
“Everything is online. The last few years all we have sold is sweets and soft drinks. It’s time to put the feet up.”
Henry Anderson, SNP councillor for the Almond and Earn ward, find the ongoing difficulties faced by rural Post offices “extremely disappointing”.
Mr Anderson said: “The fees paid to post masters has been squeezed downwards to a point that makes the operating of these rural post offices unsustainable.
“I, at one time stayed in Forgandenny area, and both locals and Strathallan School relied on the Forgandenny shop/Post Office.
“At that time the business was thriving and many in the community would regularly shop and use the Post Office services.
“Sadly with most people that live in the country nowadays are travelling to large supermarkets in Perth.
“The Post Office reducing the services that rural post office offer has a great impact on the viability of post office like similar rural post offices.
“Perhaps a community shop/post office can be assessed for viability, however that would require support from the community and the Post Office.
“My experience of the Post Office is that they have no appetite to support community initiatives that would work on this particular model.”
A Post Office spokesperson thanked the couple for their service and said they were committed to maintaining a branch in Forgandenny.
They said: “We have successfully worked with a number of community groups in Scotland previously, and we would encourage any such group with suitable premises to come forward.
“In the meantime we will continue to explore what other options we have to maintain a Post Office service in Forgandenny when the current branch closes towards the end of June.”
