MARTIN WARNS OF BLEAK FUTURE FOR POST OFFICES (Cheltenham Liberal Democrats)

Cheltenham Liberal Democrats <info@cheltlibdems.org.uk>

MARTIN WARNS OF BLEAK FUTURE FOR POST OFFICES

January 31, 2008 5:51 PM

Martin Horwood with the Post-Office-in-a-van

CHELTENHAM MP Martin Horwood warned of a bleak future for local post offices today as Post Office Limited prepared to announce more closures in Gloucestershire within days. Cheltenham is expected to lose another of its nine remaining post offices and to have an earlier closure confirmed as permanent. Details are to be formally announced on Tuesday morning.

In an unlikely attempt to allay peoples' fears, the Post Office also unveiled its new Post-Office-in-a-van which could replace lost rural services.

Martin was unimpressed: 'if this is the future of local post offices, heaven help us' he said. 'The truth is that successive Tory and Labour governments have presided over the death by a thousand cuts of the local post office network. This government has now closed even more than the last Conservative government which closed 3,500 nationwide. One after another the branches close and the management have to clutch at straws like this mobile excuse for a local service.'

'Change has to come from the top. Post Office Limited's management obviously can't keep presiding over mounting losses indefinitely while contract after contract goes elsewhere. They've lost the Post Office Card Account, TV licenses, car tax and passport checks. It's all fine for people who are fit enough to walk into town or wired up to the internet or telephone banking. But local post offices were also there to serve those with mobility problems, and people who just don't have bank accounts or internet access'.

'The government need to make a firm commitment to keep local post offices in the public sector and raise the serious cash needed to invest in their services and branches. The only way to do that is by selling shares in the more commercially competitive wing of the business, Royal Mail. If they gave 50% of the shares to post office workers themselves and sold the rest on the open market, they could raise £2 billion for investment in the post office network and free Royal Mail from treasury restrictions at the same time. If they don't like that plan, they should come up with their own but this continuing decline and decay will spell the end of the whole network if it continues. And the odd visit from some van with a counter in it will be no substitute.'