THE Bishop of Oxford has called for the Government to think again on allowing large shops to open longer on Sundays on a permanent basis.

For the duration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, shops have been allowed to open for more than six hours.

But now the Government is considering making the move permanent .

The Right Rev John Pritchard joined with the general secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and the chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores to write a letter to a Sunday newspaper expressing his alarm.

In his letter, Bishop John said: “Longer opening hours won’t put more money in the pockets of shoppers. “There is no evidence it would boost jobs or growth.

“It would, however, have a detrimental impact on small shops, family life and the special nature that Sundays still have.”

Nigel Wild, president of the Oxfordshire Chamber of Commerce , echoed Bishop John’s sentiment and said he was “vehemently against” a permanent change in the law.

He said: “It hasn’t really made much difference as far as I can tell because I have had no feedback for or against.

“People need a bit of peace and quiet for at least one day.

“Officially people can refuse to work on Sundays, but unofficially that doesn’t actually work.

“If you are employed by a company who want to work on Sundays and they say I’m not going to, life gets extraordinarily difficult.”

Department store Boswells, in Cornmarket Street, and bookseller Blackwell’s, in Broad Street, have both opened longer.

But Boswells has now reverted to its normal Sunday opening hours, 11am to 5pm rather than 10.30am to 6pm.

Managing director Jonathan Pearson said: “It hasn’t been terribly busy when we have been opening earlier or later.

“We would be happy to trade longer on Sundays if it became an established thing to do.”

However, at Blackwell’s, where Sunday opening hours have extended from 11am to 5pm to 11am to 6pm, there was a positive upswing.

For the first few weeks the store trialled opening 10am to 6pm.

Academic manager Euan Hirst said: “It’s been a tough summer generally and as expected it was very useful for us to have the extra hour on the Sunday.

“We were open for an extra half hour in the morning and that didn’t make much of a difference, but the last hour did.”

He said the shop was undecided as to whether it would seek to extend its hours if the law was changed permanently.