A village newsagent put up for sale more than a year ago closed on Saturday after it failed to attract a buyer.

Boxford News was first placed on the market when former owner Alastair Macintyre died last year.

His nephews Russell and Craig were designated beneficiaries but their father, Mr Macintyre’s brother Dr Donald Macintyre, was handling the sale.

However the property, which has a guide price of £365,000, has failed to find a buyer and as Dr Macintyre and his family live in America the decision has been made to close the shop.

Dr Macintyre said: “We were trying to run it on a trial basis. We were hoping to sell it as a newsagent because its simpler.

“That would have kept the employees on which we would have liked to have done.”

Rather than selling the property as a newsagent Dr Macintyre hopes it will fare better without the business.

“There’s enough room to split it into two bits,” Dr Macintyre added.

Although staff at the shop were only told about the closure a week ago, Dr Macintyre said they will be getting redundancy pay for “12 or 13 weeks” and holiday pay for up to five and a half weeks.

He added the reason he came to the UK was to sort things out with staff face-to-face and thank them for their work.

Mr Macintyre said: “The employees have done a fine job keeping things running for more than a year.”