Family’s three decades of service to its Derbyshire community

A Derbyshire family has been recognised for serving their community for three decades. Bhupinder and Parminder Sangha acquired Allenton Post Office in September 1993 and have become a hallmark of the community.

Their children, Harry and Harminder were teenagers when their parents took control of the business, and have both always worked at the branch. Harry’s wife, Roop, has also worked in the business for 17 years. Bhupinder Sangha had been a supervisor at the Iveco in Langley for many years prior to purchasing the post office before being made redundant when the company relocated to Italy.

He used the redundancy to pursue his dream of opening a post office business, forcing him to relocate to Derby in search of the perfect site for the new business.

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Postmaster Bhupinder Sangha said: “We have all been very happy here. People made us feel welcome and we soon got to know the community. The best thing about running your own business is the people that you meet. You get chatting to customers and we know several generations of families. We like to support the local school too.

“The community was very grateful that we kept open through the pandemic. We were really busy as people wanted to stay local, to send letters and parcels to people that they could not see and to do their home shopping returns. It was also handy as people can do their banking here.”

Bhupinder was so popular with the local community that he was asked to be president of the Allenton Royal British Legion, despite having never served in the armed forces. Harminder also had the honour of attending the special Camelot Lottery awards ceremony with her father at the Dorchester Hotel in London for excellent customer service and top sales of lottery scratch cards.

Post Office Area Manager, Rachel Bailey, visited the Sangha family to present them with their Post Office 30 Years’ Long Service Award, she said: “All the Sangha family have a great work ethic and they are really committed to serving their community. They really care about their customers. I want to thank Bhupinder and Parminder Sangha for being at the helm at Allenton Post Office for 30 years and for Harry, Harminder and Roop for all that they do too. It’s such a joy to visit this family-run business.”