A north Suffolk village store is hoping to have a Post Office up and running again in the village before Easter after agreeing to take over the running of the facility.

The Spar store in Church Street is set to open a Post Office counter in a corner of the shop, so long as planning permission can be obtained, after the previous facility in Queen Street closed in July.

The sub-postmaster David Johnson closed after 12 years at the helm because of personal reasons after he had tried to sell the business, without any success.

However, a petition was started among villagers to get the Post Office reinstated and the campaign received support from Dr Dan Poulter, MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich.

Nicky Cox, a sales assistant at Spar, said: 'I think it will be a success because there are so many elderly people living around here who use the Post Office. They need it, it is an important service to them.'

She also hoped the facility would help bring more customers into the shop, which has experienced difficult trading conditions during the last six months because of the economic downturn.

She added: 'We have had a really tough year, but it is better now than what it was about four months ago. The previous Post Office was so busy and a lot of people were moaning that they needed a facility.'

Although villages surrounding Stradbroke, such as Hoxne, Horham and Laxfield, all have Post Offices, the village parish council was concerned not every Stradbroke resident owned a car.