A village Post Office is set to be revitalised just months after facing the axed amid intensifying financial pressures.

Residents in Sturry near Canterbury will soon be able to use crucial services on Sundays and enjoy double the previous store’s weekly opening hours.

Paydens chemist shut its Post Office service on the high street in February after announcing it was no longer financially viable.

But now, bosses are eyeing up the Premier Minimart in Hoades Wood Road as the facility’s new home.

If all goes to plan, the post office will open on Thursday, May 23 at 1pm.

Works are underway to install an official Post Office serving position alongside the retail counter of the convenience store.

Its opening hours will be 7.30am to 10.30pm Monday to Saturday and 8.30am to 10pm on Sundays.

Post Office bosses say this will provide more than 100 hours of its services every week for the convenience of customers.

This is more than double the previous opening hours at the High Street branch.

Emily Clive, Post Office network provision lead, said: “We are delighted to soon be restoring a Post Office to this area as we know how important one is to a community.

“The branch’s opening hours will make it convenient for customers to visit.”

The update comes more than a year after plans to cut the original site were revealed by KentOnline, a move villagers called “heartbreaking”.

Family-run business Paydens had employed the staff manning the post office counter but made the move to stop providing the service after finding it was financially unviable.

Hostile trading conditions and a footfall shortage have seen the village near Canterbury recently lose its farm shop, a dentist’s and all six of its pubs.

A prestigious private school’s previous plans to reopen The Swan Inn in the High Street fell through last month much to the dismay of villagers.

It had been hoped the site would once again host a traditional boozer after Junior King’s unveiled plans to restore the inn as a pub with bed and breakfast.

But fresh proposals from the £14,000-a-term school – which is based about 200 yards away in Milner Court – reveal the project has now been dropped in favour of a nursery, an after-school club, new staff accommodation and a private hire community space.

However, there are plans to revive the village centre by overhauling a former fine-dining restaurant.

Laura and Raymond Asfour are bucking the trend by revamping Sturry’s former Kathton House and turning it into a coffee shop.