WEST Craven's sole surviving village post office and general store will benefit from a new initiative designed to protect businesses playing a vital role in rural communities.

Across the country, thousands of traditional village stores have been forced to close, unable to compete with bigger outlets in towns and cities. In many cases, village post offices - often run in conjunction with general stores - have also been lost.

In West Craven alone, both Salterforth and Thornton-in-Craven have lost their combined village shop and post office in recent years.

Fortunately, the Royal Mail has been able to recruit local people in both villages to run a part-time community sub post office service from their own homes.

Kelbrook's village store and post office has survived against the odds, providing an invaluable service to many people in the village. But now the vital function which it performs has been officially recognised, with financial help being offered.

Under a new Government scheme, sole village post offices and/or general stores in rural settlements with a population of less than 3,000 will qualify for a mandatory 50 per cent relief on their business rates.

In addition to that, the scheme allows local councils to top up that rate relief to a maximum of 100 per cent, at their discretion.

Under the scheme, which comes into effect from next month, local councils must define the "rural settlements" which qualify.

In West Craven, Pendle Council has defined those settlements as Salterforth, Bracewell and Brogden, and Kelbrook and Sough. Neither of the first two have their own village store, but Kelbrook's village shop and post office does qualify for the mandatory 50 per cent rate relief.

However, the even better news is that Pendle Council has now agreed to put in the other 50 per cent for businesses in its area which qualify for the Government relief.

That means 100 per cent business rate relief for Kelbrook's post office and village store - a welcome helping hand for its proprietors John and Alison Thompson.

They still have to apply for the relief, but seem almost certain to get it.

"It's good news for us and businesses like ours," said John. "It's not thousands of pounds or anything like that, but it is about £350 a year and for a small business that can make a real difference - maybe even the difference between staying open or shutting up shop. Every bit helps!"

Both John and Alison are committed to running the shop as a service to the community, offering as wide a range as possible and delivering to many of their customers. But as their livelihood, it also has to be a viable business.

Commenting on the new rate relief scheme, John added: "It's good to see a bit of common sense prevailing at last."

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