Residents of a village in west Cornwall - used by many as a cut through - say it died when the last shop closed.
Leedstown is home to around 1,300 people (and a massive smiling gorilla) and owes its unusual name to the Duke of Leeds, a man who married into the Aubyn family, the 19th century owners of one of Cornwall's most famous landmarks, St Michael's Mount.
Most tourists probably won't have heard of the village and for many that live in that part of the county it's somewhere they drive through on their way to nearby towns Hayle and Helston, reports Cornwall Live.
Leedstown, which grew during the mining boom, is situated in the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape which was designated as a World Heritage Site in 2006.
But quirkier still is the presence of a giant gorilla advertising the Big Gorilla Pizza Shack just off the main road.
Home to a primary school founded by John St Aubyn in 1813, and a well supported pub, the Duke of Leeds, the village also boasts a garage and timber merchant, a village hall with an active committee and a well attended Methodist Church.
Perhaps a reflection on its population of mainly retired people or the keen interest residents have in gardening, there are flowers and plants for sale on stalls outside many people's homes on the main road through the village.
It is however the loss of the convenience shop and post office which the community laments, so much so that, many of the people Cornwall Live spoke to said the loss of the village shop was the nail in Leedstown's coffin and there's not much going on now.
Paul Thomas, owner of Leedstown Timber Supplies, did not mince his words. "When the shop went five or six years ago, the village died," he said. "It's all down to the parish council who didn't renew the licence for the shop and so it went. There is not much here. We're just a drive-through village."
Mr Thomas said he enjoyed a Covid boost when everyone decided to redo their fences and decking during the various pandemic lockdowns and he has regular customers who know where he is, but there is not enough passing trade as people don't seem to have a reason to stop.
He admits that if the right property with the right business rate and rent came up he would probably move. "It's difficult," he added. "Since the end of the pandemic it's all gone quiet again and the cost of living crisis and rising cost of timber are certainly not helping."
Leedstown lies 5.5 miles (8.9 km) north-west of Helston and three miles (4.8 km) south-east of Hayle. It is also cheaper than its two bigger neighbours, something that played an important part when trying to get on the property ladder for Megan Haynes, 23, and her Royal Navy partner who managed to buy a house on the new housing estate.
"We moved here from Redruth at the back of last year," Megan said. "I used to dog walk for the lady who owned the house before and when she told me she was selling the house we got in on a shared ownership scheme. Leedstown's a lot more affordable than in other places and the people are friendly.
"My partner and I had been looking for a property for sometimes but there is no shop here. It means you have to go to Hayle or have it delivered. It would be nice if there was a shop in the village that's within walking distance."
Denise Humphrey moved to Leedstown from Essex in 2019 after she and her husband retired. She too agrees that a lack of convenience store or post office - it too closed a few years ago - is not ideal.
"There's a farm shop not far from here and it does very well so there's no reason why a shop would not do well here either," she said. "There's still a post office in Praze-an-Beeble. If as a village we could get a shop again that would be great."
Denise's bungalow is next to the vilage hall where she is an active committee member. While traffic, including tractors, going to and from the large Southern England Farms veg packing factory outside the village, which the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson chose a year ago to announce a new Government’s Food Strategy, are an issue, Denise is not too bothered.
"I got used to the tractors," she said. "It's an agricultural area. They have to get on with their job. Complaining about tractors is like moving next to a railway line and complaining about trains."
While tractors going up and down the main road through the village is a fact of life Denise has accepted when moving to Leedstown, for many other villagers, the increased amount of traffic is an issue.
Bob Longmore, 83, has lived in Leedstown for 24 years and was at the front of his house watering his flowers with a hose (the ban currently in place excludes registered disabled people).
The former civil servant at RNAS Culdrose who used to live in Carnon Downs before, said: "It has gone down hill I think. We used to have a post office and a shop and a baker but it's all gone now. The Methodist church is quite active and puts on lunches and coffee stops, which is fine if you're into that sort of things.
'When they have big funerals it can be a problem as people park everywhere. On one occasion we had a combine harvester stuck in the village because of all the parked cars.
"There seems to be more and more tractors now. We never used to have it that bad. It is an issue. Tractors are a lot noisier than cars and take a lot longer to stop."
Bob believes there is a bit of a divide in Leedstown between the retirees at one end and the younger residents who seem to live at the other end of village. "It's almost like two villages," he said.
Jim Couldridge, 73, returned to Cornwall after a career in the mining and oil industry as a computer systems engineer. He says his Cornish wife insisted it was time to come home.
Jim chose Leedstown because he wanted to live in a village but with the bus services to Hayle or Helston not always reliable, he admits it's not always practical when his wife can't drive.
"I hate town life," he said. "I don't like big crowds. We've always lived in villages and we were looking for a village down in this area when we came back to Cornwall. The shop and post office closed just when we got there. It is annoying. I got involved with village life a bit working on the Christmas lights. That kind of things."
Ian Bell, 78, has lived in the village for more than four decades and admits he still doesn't really know his neighbours. His late wife was from Devon but her parents lived in Cornwall so they decided to be closer to them and moved to Leedstown.
"We came on holiday and we liked it and stayed," he said. "It's been great but it has changed. There used to be a field on the other side of the road from my house. Now it's all houses.
"There are a lot more cars and traffic and it can be quite difficult trying to reverse in and out of my driveway with all the parked cars. We used to see one car an hour on our road, but now it's really busy."
Denise thinks there is still quite a lot of positives in living in Leedstown. "I think it's a very friendly village," she said. "The pub is really good. We're putting on a lot of activities at the village hall from bingo once a month to table tennis or carpet bowling and dance and exercise classes. It has taken us a while to get back up after Covid, but we're getting there."
