Skipton’s town centre post office is due to reopen today - in shared premises with sandwich store Subway.

The post office, which closed at the same time as the Co-operative food store in Swadford Street more than a month ago, has new premises in the former Breeze Bar, also in Swadford Street.

And it is to share the site with the American sandwich shop franchise, which is due to open for business at a later date.

It will mean customers will eventually be able to access post office services from Subway staff outside of normal office hours, including Saturdays and Sundays.

A Post Office spokesman said the post office would share the facilities with Subway and be run by an operator who already ran two other similar operations in the North East.

“They will be separate except there will also be a post office serving point at the retail counter which will be available during shop hours, enabling the extension of the post office hours,” the spokesman said.

From today, the post office should be open Mondays to Fridays from 9am to 5.30pm, but when Subway starts trading, opening hours will be from 9am to 7pm during the week. On Saturdays, the post office will be open from 8am to 8pm, and on Sundays from 10am to 5pm. Customers ill be able to access the same facilities as the former branch, including getting car tax and travel money, and get passports checked.

There will also be a low level writing desk and low level serving counter, for those in wheelchairs.

The old post office, which shared premises with Co-operative Food in the Westgate department store, closed on April 7. Their departure left much of the ground floor empty, with Beales Department store taking up the remaining section fronting the bus station and the upper floor. Beales is due to vacate the premises at the end of the year, in November or December, and work on the subdivision of the whole building is due to start in 2013.