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New post office announced for Belsize Park
Susanna Wilkey
A NEW sub-post office is due to open in Belsize Park nearly two years after the area's only remaining branch closed its doors, the Ham&High can exclusively reveal.
Residents are over the moon postal facilities are returning to the area where three post offices in England's Lane, Haverstock Hill and Belsize Village closed their doors in recent years.
A source close to the negotiations told the Ham&High that the site was confirmed and the post office has received the green light.
The sub-post office is expected to open inside a shop in Belsize Park within the next six months, and hopefully before the summer.
Belsize Post Office Action Group organiser Gene Adams said: "It is the most amazing piece of good news. I have been campaigning since 2004 for a new post office.
"It will mean an enormous amount to Belsize to get the post office back. People cannot believe there is not one here.
"All sorts of people have been involved in the campaign including our MP and the local councillors especially Cllr Alexis Rowell and Cllr Andrew Marshall. It has been a model for cross party working."
Belsize Residents' Association chairman Averil Nottage said: "It will be brilliant to get a post office back in Belsize Park.
"When the Belsize Village post office was closed there was a
definite commitment to replace it but since then they have closed two more on England's Lane and Haverstock Hill which has made it extremely difficult for everyone in this area to access a post office.
"We have continued to argue for a replacement and we will be delighted when we get one back."
Another resident Arthur Brill said: "It is absolutely essential to have a post office in this area not only for the elderly, but for
business use as well.
"There were four in the vicinity and they have all gone including the big one. Everyone in Belsize will be over the moon if it comes back."
Belsize Liberal Democrat councillor Alexis Rowell, who is understood to be involved in negotiations, said: "I am sorry I cannot say much at present but I did promise we would fight to get postal facilities back to Belsize and we have never given up."
Another Belsize Park residents' association member Helen Cordell said: "People here have been consistently campaigning for a post office since the one in Belsize Village closed down in 2004.
"People are very fed up about it because we have no access to a nearby post office and some elderly people have to take taxis to Hampstead.
"This is an area where lots of people rely on post office services.
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