Seventeen months after its post office shut, villagers in Oxenhope have been told the service could soon return.

The Post Office has proposed a new service in Oxenhope’s Co-Operative food shop on Station Road, and over the next month will ask villagers for their opinion on the plan.

The original post office closed in June 2011 after the former postmaster Stephen Taylor retired, and no buyer was found for the business. The building has since become a house.

Now a six-week public consultation has begun over a proposed in-shop service that will be open from 7am to 10pm.

Adrian Wales, Post Office Regional Network Manager for Central England, said: “We understand how important having a post office is to residents in Oxenhope, and we are pleased to be able to restore the service and I am confident that this new modern branch will make it easier for our customers to do business with us and also secure services for the future.

“The branch will benefit from our three-year investment programme, the largest in the history of the Post Office, that will see around 6,000 branches converting to new-style branches. The investment marks a commitment to no more branch closure programmes.”

The company says the opening hours, matching the shop rather than traditional post office hours, offered customers an extra 59 hours a week to access products and services, seven days a week.

Services will include automated banking, bill payment schemes, Post Office card account services, postal orders and postage. The announcement follows months of campaigning by Oxenhope Parish Council to have some sort of service return to the village.

Richard Cudsin, of Oxenhope Community Association, said: “At the moment a lot of people are having to go into Keighley. A lot of older people used the post office to get their pensions because they didn’t have bank accounts. They have to get picked up and taken to other towns, so it will be good to have a post office back.”

The consultation closes on February 26. Submissions can be made during the consultation by Freepost YOUR COMMENTS to Post Office Ltd, via e-mail to comments@postoffice.co.uk, via the Customer Helpline on 08457 223344 or by textphone on 08457 223355.