16183/1UNLESS there is a hot, dry summer this year, Seend might not have its post office stores this time next year.

That is the warning from sub postmaster Richard Walker, who, despite his normally upbeat character, does not see a rosy future for the shop he has run with his wife Melanie for the last nine years.

Unless there is a marked improvement in trading between now and September, Mr Walker warns that Seend will join a long list of rural villages to lose its facilities.

A recent article in the village magazine Spotlight said that since the Government brought in the system of paying pensions directly into people's bank accounts, the village post office had lost 50 per cent of its business.

And, because people are not going into the shop for their pensions, they are not spending on food and household goods. The volume of shop trade has fallen by two thirds over the last two years.

Mr Walker said that things have got markedly worse since Christmas. He said: "We are probably trading at a loss.

"Usually the summer months cover us for a bad winter, but last year we hardly had a summer at all. Sales of soft drinks and ice creams were well down."

The shop was only just recovering from the disastrous year of 2001 and the foot and mouth epidemic and Mr Walker said the business no longer has any reserves to call on.

He said: "We're going to see what happens this summer and then we will have to make a decision about the future. The business is paying us a wage, but we will have to consider whether working a 70-hour week to earn it is worthwhile."

Mr and Mrs Walker, who have a four-year-old daughter, Cliona, employ someone to work in the post office two mornings a week and a shop assistant helps out five mornings a week.

Mr Walker feels that an appeal to the local community to shun supermarkets and buy their goods more locally is unlikely to succeed.

He said: "I've tried the "use it or lose it" approach so many times and people just aren't going to use their local shop on that basis. The damage has been done and once you've lost trade you're never going to get it back.

"More often than not, both partners work and the shopping is done in a quick scramble round the supermarket at night or at weekends. People suggest that I stay open later, but I would like to spend a little time with my family."

John Smallshaw, who wrote the article in the village magazine, said: "The thought of having to travel beyond the village for a paper, a stamp or the smallest requirement is disturbing. Please give support to Melanie and Richard before it is too late."

In recent years village shops have closed in Rowde, Bishops Cannings, Patney, Urchfont, All Cannings and Worton, although Urchfont has recently successfully launched a community shop.