David Ruffley's campaign to save Sicklesmere Post Office is now close to success. David's refusal to accept closure and his persistence in keeping negotiations alive with the Post Office directly led to Nick Martin of St Edmundsbury Borough Council entering into negotiations with David to provide council funding to keep Sicklesmere Post Office open. St Edmundsbury Borough Council have pledged around £6,500 and this is to be matched by the Countryside Agency subject to some final negotiations that David Ruffley has undertaken with Miss Jane Sellers of the Countryside Agency.

David has today written to Jane Sellers at the Countryside Agency in Cambridge to confirm his support for this offer of funding.

David said: 'Although my intervention with the Post Office in the New Year was a last ditch attempt to save Sicklesmere Post Office, I knew that if we could keep talking with the authorities something would turn up and it has. The Borough Council and the Countryside Agency are matching some money that Mrs Larman has been able to raise. As a result, we are on the verge of saving Sicklesmere Post Office for the villages and the local community. The moral of the tale is that if villagers, the local Parish Council, the local sub-postmistress and the local MP 'never say die' you can get a result.'