'Lifeline' post office returns to town after six years
Elizabeth said she was well aware of the implications for local residents after the loss of the service and the couple had jumped at the chance to bring a full-time service back."We were on holiday last year and we got an email asking if we were interested in opening up a post office," she said."We just decided to go for it from then. The whole community has been totally behind us."
She said it would save on travel for people wanting to use the service and hopefully also provide a meeting point too."There are quite a lot of aged people in the town and they don't want to go travelling to Carlisle," she said."For me it was a no-brainer, it was what the community needed. It is quite a tight-knit community, everybody looks after everyone."In The Paper Shop, you kind of realise that it is a meeting hub. For some people, we might be the only person that a person sees in a day."
Solicitor Cassie Murdoch said it would make a big difference to the area."First of all, for the business, it is going to be so useful - just for paying in things and sending larger parcels that we can't fit through the post box," she said."Just having that service available every day again will make such a difference."
That view was echoed by local café owner Nicole Beattie."We opened two years ago and we really struggle with our banking," she said."It means travelling to Carlisle a lot of the time which means that we don't have a daily service."So having something that's available every day in Langholm is going to make everything so much easier."
Katherine Latimer - of Latimer's of Langholm, a furniture shop which has traded in the town for more than a century - said many of their customers still used post as their main method of communication.She said it would end the "absolute nightmare" of trying to post items out to people.The new service is available from 07:00 to 17:00 on weekdays, 07:00 to 13:00 on Saturday and 07:00 to 11:00 on Sunday.Post Office area change manager, Samuel Williams, said he was "delighted" to see a full-time branch return to Langholm.He said that the Post Office was grateful to the outreach service which operated in the town hall over the past six years.
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