A post office near the Suffolk border could be transformed to provide new living accommodation in the form of a separate flat. 

Park Street Post Office and Stores in Stoke By Nayland, near Colchester, seeks Babergh District Council to approve listed building consent to subdivide the property and create a two-bed apartment with rooms on the first floor.  

A statement to the council on behalf of the applicant said they have owned the business and property for six years and four months, and recently tried to sell it with few offers. 

"The most regular feedback received for the offers not materializing is the size of the accommodation attached to the business," the statement read.

"Interested parties commented that a smaller amount of accommodation, ideally a flat above the shop, would make the business much more viable as a going concern and therefore more sustainable." 

If approved, plans would see an existing door to the side of the shop replaced with a painted timber boarded door, which would be the private entrance to the flat. 

Next to the door is a window that would be replaced with a pair of painted timber boarded doors to be used for the shop store for delivery access.

Internal partition walls would be built to separate the shop and the existing home from the new flat. 

On the first floor, there would be a new kitchen installed between a landing and sitting room/dining room. 

The flat would also have two bedrooms and one bathroom. 

The roof space would have a fire separation component to separate house from flat.

A small and separate garden space would also be created for the flat.

The project would include the creation of a parking area.

The proposal does not seek to change the building's use and the post office would remain as part of the shop.