RURAL planning rules have been bent to help save a struggling village post office on the outskirts of the New Forest.

District councillors have overruled expert advice and granted approval for a two-bedroomed flat above Breamore Post Office, which provides a vital service for the village, near Fordingbridge.

The business is currently running at a loss, putting its owners under pressure to pay off loans taken out to buy the shop and its adjacent house in the first place.

To slash the payments and ease their financial worries, the Warr family aims to sell off the house and live above the Post Office in the proposed flat.

Such a move clashes with the New Forest's strict polices preventing the creation of new homes within the countryside, and planners told the council's development control committee there were no special circumstances to justify an exception to the rule.

But Breamore Parish Council supported the proposal, and the New Forest members decided that the possible collapse of the post office was too high a price for local residents to pay.

Committee administrator Jan Debnam said: "There is no guarantee that people living there in the future will continue to run the business, but members are very keen to retain village shops wherever possible and decided this was a special case."

A rash of rural post offices have closed in recent months in Dorset and Hampshire.

Among those affected have been Bryanston, Woodlands near Verwood and Pinehurst Road at West Moors.

North Dorset MP Bob Walter has long campaigned to try and save many rural post offices which act as a social hub for the community.

He said: "Vital community post offices and the universal postal service must be preserved."