A VILLAGE post office which has fought of numerous threats to its existence emerged a revitalised force last week when it staged a grand re-opening.

Holybourne Shop and Post Office has spent the last two years facing closure and the possibility of having to reduce its services, but on Saturday a staggering 300 local residents came out in support of the community's key service.

"We see this response as a vote of confidence in the continuity of the village. There's so much news about village and post offices closing, so this is a good story," said David Edwards, who runs the shop - which employs around 40 people - with his wife Olwen.

The re-opening was attended by the young and the old, the local and the famously local.

Alan Titchmarsh, renowned gardener and Holybourne resident, addressed a crowd which, by any standards, was large enough to indicate how comprehensively supported the Edwards have been in their efforts to keep the business alive.

Doris Chandler - who at 92 is Holybourne's oldest living resident - was on hand to cut the ribbon. Given that her father used to run a bakery sited at the rear of the post office, she was the ideal person to welcome the newly-refurbished enterprise into its next phase.

A BBC South news crew was also present to capture the moment for posterity.

Mrs Edwards said the fact that the shop had been closed for six days prior to the opening had "brought home" to the residents just how important the store and post office was.

"We were absolutely bowled over," she said, recounting how one resident had left a bottle of wine outside the shop as a show of appreciation for the couple's efforts.

The shop's new look has given it a "very modern" feel, according to Mr Edwards.

Apart from a new suspended-ceiling, it has been completely re-wired, elevated to incorporate a split-level shop space and covered throughout in laminate flooring.

The post office till system has also been made more efficient. There is an emergency post office counter, set back from the main area, and a "combi-till", which combines two post office tills and one shop till.

In tune with the general modernisation of the store, the Edwards have even introduced an in-store bakery and video-and-DVD hire.

The shop has given great attention to conforming to guidelines laid down by the Disability Discrimination Act, which came into effect this October. The front entrance, which opens automatically, is disabled-access friendly and a widened staircase leading to the upper-level part of the shop has a doorbell at a reasonable height, enabling anyone physically unable to climb the steps a means to alert a member of staff.

And the the refurbishment is just the start of an expansion plan - the Edwards are taking over Market Street Newsagents next Monday.

"It's economies of scale to a certain degree," said Mr Edwards, "because we do a lot of deliveries around Alton and surrounding areas, and Market Street do mainly Alton itself. So, between us, we've got the lion's share of the newspaper deliveries."

It is recognised among Holybourne residents, and in particular the Edwards themselves, that the store's revival has been a remarkable one.

In May 2002, the post office was faced with closure after Consignia - the short-lived Royal Mail re-launch - deemed that it had to be reclassified as an "urban" outlet, as part of a "Network Reinvention" programme.

The network body charged with "streamlining" the country's postal service claimed that Holybourne had grown from just under 1,500 people (as on the electoral roll) "to an urban conurbation numbering 10,000", meaning that Holybourne post office might have to merge with another outlet, relocate or face closure.

If it had not been for the recent closure of the nearby Anstey Road post office, which was also classified as urban, and the subsequent creation of a new Tesco Express, the Edwards may have had a much harder fight on their hands.

And at the end of last year, the beleaguered store once again found itself up against a large organisation seeking to diminish its services.

In October, Camelot, the agency that runs the National Lottery, told Mr and Mrs Edwards that the shop's lottery ticket sales figures were not high enough, and in order to be able to keep their lottery ticket machine, sales would have to be increased from £900 per week to £1,400.

This news outraged Mr Edwards, who was angry because he felt that his shop should be classified by Camelot as a "community store", which it was not. Under Camelot's policy, community stores do not have to meet sales thresholds.

After months of trepidation, the company finally relented.

A triumphant Mr Edwards said at the time: "It shows that if a situation is handled correctly, the small man can have an effect on a huge company."