An area of west London left without a post office after a massive raft of closures last year, will have a service once again.

A sub-post office in West Kensington is due to to open at a North End Road newsagent.

Das Sodha, the owner of North End News, has confirmed he is to run a post office from his store in April.

After the post office counter inside Costcutter in Hammersmith Road closed in February last year, W14 had the dubious honour of being the first postcode in London not to have a branch since they were introduced in 1857.

As a result, customers who had used the post office were forced to go to Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush, where queues are among the top five worst in London.

Postwatch Greater London, monitored seven post offices and found that Shepherd's Bush was the fourth worst branch in the capital for queuing

times.

Mr Sodha, who plans to carry out 20,000 worth of renovations to his store of 23 years to accommodate the post office counter, believes a petition of 600 signatures calling for a post office to be re-instated in W14, helped him to secure the contract.

However it took six months for Royal Mail to give him the nod.

Mr Sodha said: "I'm so excited. I'm losing sleep over it. My customers have all got behind me in my bid, so this is a victory for all of us.Ó

Residents' services leader Councillor Paul Bristow said: "Since day one, we have been