Campaign to Save Post Offices

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Campaign to Save Post Offices

Further Local Campaigns

Survival of the local: the concern

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Sub-Postmasters and their Businesses

Last year, parliament approved government proposals that would allow the closure of up to 3,000 urban sub-post offices deemed "surplus to modern consumer needs". The then Trade Minister, Stephen Timms, assured MPs that there was no longer enough work to sustain the historic network of 9,000 local branches. The government’s figures show that nearly 8,000 of the 19,000 Post Offices in Britain are at least 40% reliant on income dealing with benefits. Thus the government’s plans to switch to paying state benefits directly into bank accounts, while applying business criteria to the post offices rather than regarding them as a service for society, is leading directly to the threat of closure of the urban branches.

The Royal Mail Group network of post offices is said to be losing over £100 million a year. The plan to close the 3,000 sub-post offices is set to run from this year to the end of 2005, an average of four post offices every working day.

In Canterbury, the campaign to stop the closure of the Castle Street and Thanington sub-post offices, which will affect claimants, pensioners and others, is being led by Richard Roberts, a mental health worker. The campaign has staged demonstrations with the slogan, "No to Closure of Sub-Post Offices!"

Richard Roberts, interviewed at a protest outside one of the post offices, said, "It is quite wrong that these post offices should be closed. Their disappearance will make it very difficult for people, particularly the elderly, to obtain the services they need."

The campaign, which is supported by a 200-strong petition containing the names of local people vehemently opposed to the loss of their post offices, has written to the Prime Minister with the petition demanding that the closures be halted. The Post Office Ltd (POL) National Consultation Team, which was also sent a copy of the petition, replied in curt fashion saying that "unfortunately" the consultation period has ended! So much for taking into account the needs of customers!

Nor has the response from 10 Downing Street been much better. Its Direct Communications Unit said that the matter was the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry.

The DTI’s response shows POL’s creativity in re-labelling the closure of one-third of the urban network. The DTI explains that "POL’s combined proposal to close these offices is part of the company’s three-year implementation of the urban post office network ‘reinvention programme’. The aim of the programme is to help create conditions for a sustainable network of viable post offices where customers can continue to enjoy access to the full range of services." It appears that "POL’s properly managed urban reinvention programme is far preferable to the alternative of unmanaged closures resulting from falling income". This, apparently would cause "much greater disruption to customers". It need hardly be said that a post office whose closure is "properly managed" still remains closed.

Tony Blair is forever explaining that the government’s "hard choices" in opposition to the people’s demands and needs are the unavoidable prerogative of leadership. The DTI takes up the theme. "POL’s current financial position means that it has no alternative but to make many hard choices in order to preserve the viability of the post office network and its accessibility in every part of the country." Of course, the POL’s necessity to make such financial considerations paramount stems from the fact that under "the Government’s reforms, the Royal Mail Group has been giver greater commercial freedom so that the Board can run the company as it sees fit on a commercial basis". Thus the need to be competitive in the global market against such rivals as Hays, Business Post Group and Dutch Group TNT Post wins the day against the claims of vulnerable sections of the people.

A subsequent letter from the DTI in response to the campaign’s letter and petitions is, as Richard Roberts comments, "negative and full of half truths". It repeats the above-mentioned formula about the "reinvention programme" and the necessity to avert an "unmanaged decline" in the POL business. It says, "In every instance there will also be extensive consultation with the consumer body, Postwatch." This is small comfort when the consumer body declares the consultation period closed, despite popular opposition. However, the issue is not "consultation" as such. The issue is, who makes these decisions and on what criteria. Despite the standard verbiage, covering two sides, that the Department of Trade and Industry’s Post Services Directorate uses to attempt to justify the "properly managed urban reinvention programme", the people are being denied the right to make the decisions on the basis of what serves the interests of elderly and less mobile people, the local communities and society as a whole.

WDIE wishes the Canterbury campaign, and the many others like it up and down the country, a successful outcome and congratulates them on their initiative, persistence and the spirit of taking matters into their own hands and not accepting the justifications from those on high.

Pensioners in East London are protesting at plans to close two post offices in Leytonstone this summer.

The branches, in Colworth Road and Lea Bridge Road, could close in July, and older people in the area are worried that they could be left without anywhere nearby to collect pensions. Two Walthamstow branches, in Markhouse Road and Blackhorse Lane, will close next month under the proposals.

Tom Jackson, 81, of the Leyton Pensioners Association, said: "The post office is basically the life blood of the community, especially if you are a pensioner or are living on benefits. It's crazy to think about closing them down. They are looking to save money and are not thinking about the quality of service. Not all pensioners have bank accounts. Where are they going to get their money? It's a disgrace."

Tom Jackson said: "I'm taking it on my back to have a fight about this because it's absolute nonsense. I ask the people planning these closures to come and visit the post offices on pension day, there are always queues and they are busy places. You can't solve the problems you have by closing outlets and making the queues longer. They have to go out there and see what's really needed."

Kanubhati Amin, sub-postmaster of Whipps Cross Post Office, Lea Bridge Road, said: "I've not decided what I am going to do, but many of my customers are upset and are talking about getting a petition together. I don't know if they will save it."

Leytonstone MP Harry Cohen has backed the campaign. He said: "The proposals to close post offices in Leytonstone are disappointing for residents in the area. They can, and should, object to the plans if they strongly oppose either of the closures."

A Hornsey Post Office has also closed indefinitely. Residents have branded the move to close Priory Avenue post office underhand. They believed the office was only temporarily closed while the sub-postmaster recovered from ill health.

But in a letter to resident Mario Petrou, George Hooper, head of area for Post Office Ltd, said: "I can confirm that while we have not opened formal consultation on the permanent closure of this office, you will know we are reviewing the long term future of all urban post office branches."

Up to ten of the borough's post offices are currently under threat. The latest closure at Priory Road has prompted Hornsey and Wood Green MP Barbara Roche to make representations on behalf of residents.

Barbara Roche dispatched questionnaires to residents living near the Priory Road and Archway branches asking them to respond with their views on local postal services. She found that 96 per cent of residents used the Priory Road branch with more than half using it on a weekly basis. Ninety one per cent said they would use the post office again if it were to remain open.

The MP said: "The response rate has been in the hundreds and this alone signifies the unambiguous level of concern that residents have about keeping their sub-post office open."

Many other campaigns are taking place, which are generally only heard about at local level. Among such campaigns are those in Spean Bridge, Inverness, Drumnadrochit, Nairn and Conon Bridge, the Scottish Highlands and Islands, across Essex – including Colchester, Saltdene in East Sussex, St Michael's Hill in Bristol, Bryanston near Blandford – and across North Dorset, Queen’s Road and St Michael’s Road in Aldershot, and a 100,000-strong petition in Suffolk.

By: JOHN ROSS -- 02-Apr-03

The threat to the local, from the closure of bank branches, sub post-offices and local shops to the slow death of rural villages, market towns and fishing ports, is daily news. What is less well recognised is that these are accelerated by a national policy framework which systematically favours the large and the remote. Transport investment, planning laws, competition policy, food quality standards and business taxation operate in this way.

The threat to the local has helped to generate numerous, diverse campaigns. These range from fostering rural food links, reviving village shops, stopping bank branch closures, promoting independent pubs and real ale and renewing inner-city neighbourhoods. All of these have over recent years resisted the distortions of this policy agenda and argued for pro-local alternatives.

?6% of rural (15% urban deprived) sub-post offices had no retail business while 37% of rural (21% of the urban deprived) were part of a general store or other larger retail business.

In both rural and deprived urban areas, a majority of sub-postmasters believe that the post office contributes to over 50% of the sales in the attached shop. Most sub-postmasters in both rural (69%) and deprived urban (86%) areas attribute few sales in the post office to the retail business.

28% of sub-postmasters in rural areas and 35% in deprived urban areas are actively considering leaving the post office. A third of rural subpostmasters looking to leave stated "loss of income" and a quarter were retiring. One fifth of deprived urban sub-postmasters were leaving by retirement.

Even among sub-postmasters not actively intending to leave, 32% would seriously consider it if their post office income fell by 10% or less.

Over 90% of sub-postmasters think that the Government or Post Office should provide support to post offices which are not viable, with rural subpostmasters favouring a "social" or "community role" payment, and deprived urban sub-postmasters preferring a "compensation if the business has to be sold".

September 2001, Prepared by Environmental Resources Management in association with MORI and SERRL