Keep our Post Offices Open

I have been out and about checking in with local post offices and their postmasters and postmistresses linked to information that has been coming in about the Governments Post Office closure programme.

The situation seems to be pretty much like this:

The Government does not have a long-term strategy for the Post Office, or if they do it is about disposal. Under Labour, 4,875 post offices have closed since 1997, almost ten a week.

In May 2007 the Government announced the further closure of 2,500 post offices including targets of three in Pontefract & Castleford and three in Normanton a total of ten across the five towns.

Closures are taking place over an 18 month period with six week public consultations in each local area. But these consultations have been exposed as a sham since local people do not have enough time to have their say. Since the Government will close a pre-determined number of post offices in each area, if one post office is saved, another will have to close.

In the new Normanton Pontefract and Castleford Constituency consultation was set to start in April. However the government has asked Post Office Management to wait until after the local elections in May to carry through any actual announcements, consultations or closures (I wonder why?)

The word on the street is that the branches to be "deleted" will be given initial information around the middle of March, but they are contactually forbidden to talk about it.

Apparently if the Post Office decides to close a branch, regardless of consultation then it has a high probability of closure, this is about reductions and volume and type of activity may not make a difference.

So what is the point of challenging this?

Well the local post office plays a critical role in our communities for many of our elderly and the vulnerable and these closures will hit them hardest.

This is just another sign of the governments lack of joined up thought and we need to oppose this or let them gradually strip back service and support.

Colleagues tell me that with a six week consultation, there is insufficient time to get significant feedback from members of the public and the GPO are then saying that this is proof that people are accepting the closure programme. By acting now we can have a significant and meaningful response and one that is harder to ignore.