Now it has been told that it doesn't even deserve its own post office.

But the Post Office looks set to have a fight on its hands closing down the World Heritage Village's sub-post office — as it's being argued that it is probably one of the most useful in Scotland.

The naming of it as one of 44 small local offices to close in central Scotland in the latest phase of a nationwide cull of 2500 sub-post
offices both baffled and angered the village postmaster.

He is none other than Dr Jim Arnold, the nationally-celebrated head of the New Lanark Conservation Trust.

In just 40 years, he has helped turned the ghost mill village into a jewel in Scotland's tourism crown, winning United Nations' World Heritage Site status.

Ironically, Post Office officials came to the village recently to make a special Long Service Award to him for holding the postmaster's position for 20 years.

His strong opposition to the closure of the small village office is not based on any sentimentality but on the realities of running it as part and — literally — parcel of the large Conservation Trust operation at New Lanark.

The heritage village attracts tens of thousands of visitors every year and pumps a fortune into the local economy.

"The village sub-post office is very much part of the business side of New Lanark," Jim told the Gazette.

"The Woolen Mill, our Visitor Centre and the New Lanark Mill Hotel all bank there.

''And when and if the office goes, we won't be transferring that
business to the main Post Office in Lanark, which seems to be Post Office Ltd's thinking on where that business will go.

''We'll just use an ordinary bank for that business in future.

''The way it is, we can keep all our banking virtually 'in house', in New Lanark itself."

He added that the village office was also kept busy with toursim mail and mail order business for the various goods sold from the village's tourist businesses.

And according to Jim, villagers also make good use of the office for their personal business as they don't have to go up the steep, narrow hill road to Lanark.

Jim predicts they will use other means such as the internet in future for that business — again not giving their business to the surviving main post office in Lanark.

He said that the closure decision, therefore, just didn't seem to make any business sense.

He speculated: "It probably fell into certain closure perameters set down in some office in London with a guy sitting at a computer, making up the list based purely on things like distance from the nearest
alternative post office, etc.

''In New Lanark's case, that calculation just doesn't work. It doesn't make sense."

He said that the village did get a cursory visit from a Post Office Ltd inspector, carrying out the pre-closure programme review but this was brief and carried out by someone who hardly knew where the village was, never mind the local conditions and circumstances.

Jim said: "You got the feeling that they'd made their mind up we were going on the closure list before the visit and they were simply going through the motions."

Now he is encouraging villagers and supporters to write to the Post Office's 'consultation' team before the September 1 deadline to make their objections to the closure clear.

And he said a petition may be started, should there be demand.

Another office earmarked for closure is the one which has operated in Lanark's Westport for 85 years.

There, the Post Office will meet with less resistance.

Postmistress for the past 21 years, Ruth Rastall, said the decision had been largely inevitable due to changing customer habits and customer figures.

Post offices throughout the UK have suffered a severe drop-off in business — especially for government services and benefits agencies — allocated away from the post office network in recent years.

She said she was facing the closure with sad inevitabilty and had already discouraged at least one apparently outraged local businessman from mounting a Save Our Post Office campaign.

"I just asked him how many times he'd actually used the office in the past and he admitted it had just been twice and, even then, just to buy stamps.

''You can't keep a business going on selling the odd stamp. It's sad but true that so many things you used to get just from your local post office, you can get elsewhere these days."

She emphasised that the closure was entirely outwith her hands.

As for the third office earmarked for closure, at Bankhead, Lesmahagow, the intentions of the postmaster there were unclear by the time the Gazette went to press.

There the post office is part of a general grocery business and not totally dependent on its sub-post-office income.

Those wishing to object to any of the closures can do so in writing, by September 1, to Sally Buchanan, Network Development Manager, National Consultation Team, Postoffice Freepost Consultation Team or email consultation@postoffice.co.uk.