A FRESH plea was made by Haslemere’s Haslewey community centre this week for donations to ensure the much-missed Lion Green post office can re-open by Christmas.

The Post Office has approved Haslewey’s plan to convert former office space in its foyer as a community branch. But the registered charity, which operates its community services without a grant, needs to raise £15,000 to pay for the building works required.

Wey Hill lost its post office branch, based in the former Lion Green Co-op, in March last year, when Marks and Spencer took over the site.

A petition to keep a post office in Wey Hill gathered more than 4,000 signatures in January 2016, in an attempt to persuade M&S to host the service in its new store, but to no avail.

A M&S spokesman told The Herald: “We appreciate the feedback from the local community and will take that into consideration, but typically we do not operate sub-post offices in our stores.”

Haslemere resident Karen Gleave, who started the petition, said 4,000 signatures had been gathered at the Lion Green Post Office alone, with many more signatories signing copies in businesses across Wey Hill.

Loyal Lion Green Post Office workers continued to run the branch after the Co-op shut its doors in July 2015, with customers walking through a boarded-up section to get to the counter at the back while building works were under way to convert it into a M&S.

Mrs Gleave, who started a social media campaign with fellow residents Monique Cartwood and Abby Bishop, said: “When you have more than 4,000 people signing a petition there has to be a pretty big section of the community supporting it.

“A lot of older people live near this location and they rely on a post office at this end of town.

Angered by the closure, more than 3,000 residents signed Haslewey’s petition to the Post Office in August last year, to re-open the vital facility. Having succeeded in getting permission to open a community post office, Haslewey is keen to restore the service as soon as possible, but it needs support from townsfolk to cover the cost.

The Post Office will pay for two counters and a safe.

However, Haslewey must pay the wages of the postmaster and assistant.

The £15,000 is needed to pay for knocking down a wall to locate the new facility in a corner of the foyer, to reinforce it to meet Post Office requirements and to fit it out.

Plans for the new post office branch are on display in Haslewey and at the town information shop at Haslemere Station, and a major fundraising campaign is now under way.

Businesses up and down Wey Hill have pledged their support and are flagging up the £15,000 appeal in window displays and on fliers for their customers.

Haslewey also wanted to make it clear re-opening the Lion Green branch was quite separate to the ongoing campaign to ensure Haslemere’s Post Office in West Street, stays open when the lease expires next April.

“We are totally behind the Post Office continuing in West Street,” Haslewey manager Kerry Morren-Jeffs said. “We are very grateful to Post Office Counters for installing the equipment here. The shortfall is the infrastructure costs. It will have to be made like a bank.

“That’s what we are raising the money for.

“We are taking it on as a franchise for the community and we hope all those people who were passionate enough to sign our petition will want to make a donation so that we can start the building works in time to be open by Christmas.

“The branch won’t make a profit but it’s something local people and businesses still want in this part of town.

“We have a professional postmaster prepared to take up the role and we are hoping Haslewey will benefit from the increased footfall both by making our cafe busier and by making more people aware we are here, and that it is an attractive venue that can also be hired out for events.

“We are reducing the size of the original office, which will make the foyer larger.

“We definitely don’t want to lose any of our comfy sofas.”

• To donate online go to www.haslewey.org – payments can also be made by cheque made out to: HDCC (Haslemere and District Community Centre) and posted to them c/o Lion Green, Haslemere GU27 1LD.