Post Offices: We don't want to be saved (From Bucks Free Press)

Post Offices: We don't want to be saved

9:45am Sunday 4th July 2004 in News By Margaret Smith

POLITICAL opponents Paul Goodman and Julia Wassell are in agreement over one thing - it will be impossible to save local post offices threatened with closure.

Mr Goodman, Conservative MP for Wycombe, and Ms Wassell, Labour prospective candidate, are both prepared to campaign to keep the offices open, if that is what people want.

But they openly admit many post office owners are going broke and are ready to shut up shop.

Post offices earmarked for closure include Downley High Street; Wycombe Marsh; Totteridge; Terriers; Sands; Green Street in High Wycombe; Marlow Road, High Wycombe; Newfield Gardens, Marlow.

Four others in the Beaconsfield and Chesham and Amersham constituencies are also on the list, including Holmer Green.

Last week Mr Goodman said: "I am beginning to wonder if we will be left with any local services at all."

This week he said it would be good if the post offices could be kept open and he wanted to play his part.

But he added: "I have been to a local post office and talked to the owner who emphasised to me that they are going broke and, even if we save them for a while, it won't be for very long."

The post office was Downley, where Mr Goodman got the view from the owner that the situation was exactly the same in all the others. He had told him none of the post offices earmarked for closure were on the list against the will of their owners.

They had been consulted and had accepted with a heavy heart.

On Wednesday Ms Wassell did a tour of post offices. She said the only one that had a chance was at Holmer Green, which was in a rural area and served a defined community.

She was told by post office owners that they had little to do all day and did not want to go on. She gave most a nought out of five survival rating.

Many of them were in tiny kiosks, huts or rooms of houses.

She told the Free Press: "Business has been reducing for years, since stamps went into shops in 2000, and the last straw was people having benefits paid into their bank accounts."

She added that things that used to be done in post offices were no longer done there any longer such as dog licences, postal orders and parcels.

"Having looked at them I feel it is inevitable that most will close. I don't think a case can be made."

Ms Wassell also went to some of the post offices which would take over the trade of those that would close. Those generally had better facilities she said, quoting the one in Desborough Road, which she said was modern with plenty of counter space and selling things such as stationery and cards. Some had fax and photocopying machines and the ability to book holiday flights on line.

But she stressed that frail or older people might find the extra travelling difficult and she said it would cost them more if they had to catch a bus to the next post office.

Mr Goodman said: "Some people, particularly those who are elderly or disabled, will feel that they have no alternative within reach.

"The Post Office may have under-estimated the difficulty, in hilly places, of disabled and elderly people gaining access to the new post offices.

"It may be possible to stop these closures and I am doing everything that I can to ensure that the Post Office takes local feeling into account."

Ms Wassell said: "If people want to campaign and they can make a case I will support it."

The Post Office has defended the proposals by claiming 25 per cent more branches preferred to close than anticipated.

A spokesman said: "We wrote to all post offices. The response was much greater than expected. More branches wanted to close than was needed.

"Those branches wishing to close had to be filtered three times, so that once the programme has finished those left are key to their areas."

But it seems not all branches are happy with the move. Sohail Khan, sub postmaster at the Green Street branch, told the Free Press staff and customers were stunned by the news.

He said: "For the last four years they have been threatening to close us. This is bad for the community and bad for business."

Anyone who wants to comment should write to National Consultation Team, PO Box 2060, Watford, WD18 8ZW, by August 5