Nine of the fourteen post offices which the Government plans to close in the Ludlow constituency are in the last remaining shop in the village. The post office brings customers into the shop, which helps to keep the shop going. Most shops will trade on after the loss of their post office, but a few will certainly close.
But all too often our village shops are not used enough by local people. If we want to keep convenient village shops we must try to drop in and spend some of our regular weekly shopping money in our local shop.
If we lose more village shops it will be the most vulnerable who suffer most.
We already have some of the most socially excluded parts of England within the constituency, confirmed in a recent study by Oxford University. This created an Index of Deprivation measuring socal exclusion and deprivation based on road distance to a GP surgery, a supermarket or convenience store, a primary school and a post office. The Corve Valley ward was the 11th most excluded area in England, and second most excluded in the West Midlands. Bitterley with Stoke St Milborough ward was placed fifth and Upper Corvedale ward ninth most excluded in the West Midlands.
Small shops on the high street face similar pressures. Last week David Cameron highlighted the risk posed to their future by Government plans to water down planning rules for new supermarkets to demonstrate retail need. What independent shops really need, whether in villages or on the High Street are customers. So if we want to keep them we must shop in them.
