A charity which has been "like a community centre" for its village for nearly 30 years is closing due to falling trade and rising rents.

The Oxfam store in Ewell Village High Street will be shutting its doors for one last time on Saturday, February 28.

Dedicated volunteer Margaret Holland, who has been working there since the shop opened on February 13, 1986, said Oxfam's lease has come to an end and it can no longer afford to keep it open because the landlord has increased the rent.

The volunteer said it is not yet known who the shop’s successor will be.

"For the last two to three years in Ewell Village the footfall has gradually dropped and dropped and dropped and all the lovely little shops we had here in the 1980s - those for embroidery, dress shops and boutiques, second-hand bookshops, antiques - they have all disappeared," said Mrs Holland.

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"There is nothing to bring people into Ewell Village so our trade has gone down and we are not making sufficient profit to sustain it."

Mrs Holland, who worked as the store manager for 27 years, said that although restaurants attract people to the village in the evening, it can feel quite empty during the day.

"Oxfam wants to promote its shops which are making money and the ones which aren’t making much, there’s no point keeping them open."

Mrs Holland said the volunteers would miss the friendship which each other and the customers which the shop has fostered.

"It’s almost like a community centre," she added.

Some of the volunteers from the Ewell Village shop may lend their services to the Epsom High Street store.