THE manager of a Harrow-on-the-Hill Post Office has voiced his disappointment at the collapse of plans to save it.

Thousands of people signed petitions to rescue the branch, in High Street, when it was shut down last year and Harrow Council had hoped to enter a pact to re-open it with support from Harrow School.

But talks with Post Office Ltd have been abandoned in the face of escalating financial demands from the company, which the council says are now too high.

Mylvatanam Asokan, the former postmaster, still runs a newsagents from the shop, but said times had been difficult since the closure.

He said: “If they could have saved the branch it would have been great. As a business it's good for us, but also it's a service the community is missing so badly at the moment.

“In that sense I'm quite upset that it didn't work out. It shouldn't have been closed in the first place anyway, despite all our efforts and the efforts of the community.

“There were close to 4,000 signatures and well over 1,000 people wrote personal letters.”

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