Nearly there...

On the 15th of July we will learn how effective the consultation, with questions, concerns, arguments and thousands of representations have been to keep our local Post Office at Hardwick Road open. Our MP feels that the Conservative Councillors in Pontefract in pushing to keep Hardwick Road Post Office open are playing politics and has used the local paper to vent.

Well, we clearly have a different view to hers. The instruction from her political masters in this Labour Government telling Royal Mail to close 2500 post office branches within rigid timeframes has lead to a number of the decisions being contested. The six weeks given for consultation is seen by many including many Labour MPs as a flawed exercise, we sincerely hope that Royal Mail take consultation process seriously.

For the record Ms Cooper had an opportunity to do something about this but she chose not to. There was a vote in Parliament on the 19th March to suspend closures and to review the consultation process, this in the light of concerns about the way that consultations had been managed in the initial batch of closures already in process.


The Government defeated the motion to suspend by only 20 votes. Our 4 local Labour MP's backed the Government, and sacrificed their constituents in the process, it should be said that the public record is clear and that a number of Labour MPs took a more principled stand and voted to support constituents concerns.

So Ms Cooper criticises us for questioning her commitment to constituents over her responsibilities to the Brown NuLabour government and based on the comments from many that I have met they feel let down by her.

We appear to be seeing on her part a repeat of public declarations of concern and undertakings to lobby which residents across the area received linked to former Post Office Branches in Chequerfield, Ferrybridge and Castleford in previous years.

Saying one thing and doing another is a common political tactic which her government has deployed all too regularly over the last eleven years, I hope that she will really give this her best effort.

Just as the public will judge us by our actions, so should she be judged.