TALKS are progressing to find a new outlet for a post office in Calstock after the closure of the full time service last month.

Chairman of Calstock Parish Council Dick Hoile told the Times this week that there would definitely be a new post office service in Calstock but at the moment he was not sure what form it would take.

Owner of the general stores Avron Levine resigned as sub-postmaster at the beginning of September because he said it was no longer economical for him to run the service.

The announcement was a shock to the village, and emergency talks were held with Post Office Ltd in the hope of finding a solution to the problem.

Mr Hoile said it was a case of finding the best post office model to suit the community. The three options were a post office which could be run in any business such as a shop, pub or village hall, a visiting post office run by another in the area or a community post office run by volunteers as a community enterprise.

'We have another meeting with someone from the post office next week but things are looking positive,' he said. 'There is an interest in using the village hall but it depends whether that fits with the post office criteria to run a 'Post Office Essential'.

'If it does, the service would be able to deliver 85 per cent of what a normal post office does, which includes paying bills, pensions, buying stamps and using your cash card to get money out.

'It can basically carry out any transactions that take less than a minute so you can send a parcel to Australia but not to Afghanistan because it would take longer to process.'

Mr Hoile said it was unlikely that the post office would be a full-time service again: 'It depends where the post office is, for example, if it was in the pub, it would be open in accordance with the licensing hours.

'The post office in Calstock was dealing with 300 transactions a week — there is not enough business to warrant someone sitting there for eight hours a day.

'We have to be realistic about it and to have something is better than having nothing at all.'

A spokesperson for Post Office Ltd said: 'We are continuing to work with the local community to come up with a solution as quickly as possible. We apologise to customers for this inconvenience.'