GREAT DUNMOW, England — Leaning on his traditional metal last, cobbler Barry Ashard reflects on the changes he has seen in a half-century repairing the shoes of Dunmow.
"Just in this street, there was a general store, a greengrocer's, a brewery, a school, a baker's, a mill, a garage, a sweetshop, a saddler's . . . they've all gone now — and nothing will bring them back," says Ashard, gesturing down winding, narrow North Street, where his father first set up shop 67 years ago.
It is ancient market towns like Dunmow, about 40 miles northeast of London, that the government is hoping to regenerate with a package of multimillion-dollar plans announced last week by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
Many of the towns have had the commercial heart ripped out of them as local businesses are felled by competition from out-of-town superstores, high rents and burgeoning bureaucracy.
Government figures show more than 4,000 rural stores — many in out-of-the-way villages — have gone out of business in recent years, and rural post offices are currently closing at the rate of 100 a year. In the past 20 years, 450 country schools have shut down.
Prescott, who is responsible for regional issues, said the government will invest $390 million turning rural post offices into one-stop shops providing a wider range of services, including banking, Internet access, pensions and medical prescriptions.
About $348 million will be earmarked to improve rural transport systems, and $145 million will be used to create one-stop health-care centers in 100 communities.
More village stores, pubs and garages will be offered a 50 percent reduction in business rates, provided they offer services that benefit their communities. And there also will be a so-called rural advocate to lobby the government on countryside issues.
Announcing the measures in the House of Commons, Prescott said he wanted to promote "a living countryside with thriving rural communities and access to high-quality services."
The Council for the Protection of Rural England called the plan "a cautious but well-founded start to securing a better deal for rural communities." But some critics accused the government of merely trying to woo voters before the next general election, likely next year.
At his Dunmow shop hung with rabbits for the pot, butcher Peter Sweetland said even more money is needed to revitalize dozens of market towns.
"In Dunmow, we are pinning our hopes now on people moving out here from London and bringing their money with them," he said.
Around the corner is Jeremy Jeffreys, owner of Luckin's Wine Merchants, which is all that remains of a thriving grocer's and delicatessen that opened in 1870.
Like many old towns, Dunmow lacks proper parking, so shoppers prefer out-of-town superstores, Jeffreys said.
"It's OK for me, sitting on a bottle of old port, but a deli owner needs passing trade to turn over his stock," he said. "With all these superstores, how do you guarantee that?"
Prescott's measures come too late for the combined village store and post office in Lower Sheering, a village near Dunmow, which has been boarded up since going under last year.
"It wasn't just a shop, it was a social center — people went there to gossip while they bought essentials like milk and bread," said retiree Audrey Caplin, who has a car but worries about elderly neighbors who must use the patchy local bus service to collect their pensions at a post office two miles away.
"Losing the shop has taken away our sense of community," she said.