Save our post offices
Posted by Mark Prisk, MP for Hertford and Stortford, at 14:13, Tue 5 August 2008:
The news that the Post Office want to close five local post offices, including at Havers Lane in Bishop’s Stortford, comes as the Government winds up its national Post Office closure programme. Overall they have agreed with the management at Post Office Counters that 2,500 must close, regardless. There just aren’t enough customers they say.
Yet this whole closure programme has been based on two mistaken assumptions. First they assume that falling customer numbers means that people no longer want to use local post offices. Second, they hope that people therefore won’t complain. They are wrong on both counts.
First, the decline in use is a direct result of a reduction in the services offered. When the BBC withdrew its TV license fee from post offices it had an immediate impact. Drivers’ licences going online had the same impact. What Government and the Post Office should be doing instead is widen the range of services which local post offices can provide.
For example, as more and more people order goods online, the local post office is an ideal site for parcels to be delivered for busy people out at work. We could then all pop into the local post office on our way home and collect the parcel. We’d probably buy a pint of milk and some other essentials. Suddenly we’ve got a boon to our local service. In other words instead of winding the service down, they should be imaginative and help post offices adapt.
Second, people are rightly up in arms about the closures. Forty people came to express their concern when I visited the Ware Road Post Office in Hertford a few days ago. Meanwhile, in Bishop’s Stortford there’s already an active campaign to fight any closure at Havers Lane. This pattern is being repeated at almost every other area.
The reason is simple. Post offices aren’t just local businesses; they are a vital part of our neighbourhood. They are one of the few focal points left for local communities to gather and meet. For the growing number of home based workers they are essential. For the elderly and the less mobile they are a lifeline. In other words they are part of the social glue that binds communities together. That is why people feel so passionately about them.
That’s why I shall be actively supporting the local campaigns, at Havers Lane and elsewhere to save our post offices. For local campaigners I have put up details of the key actions you need to take on my website and I shall be helping each campaign group in the coming months. Go to the Campaigns page at www.markprisk.com where more information can be found.
Comments
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Posted by Allandt Bik-Elliott, 14:36, Tue 5 August 2008: (Is this post abusive?) #
the idea of using the post office as a holding place for parcels is great - this kind of thinking (updating our current infrastructure rather than scrapping it for the governments latest flash in the pan) is a breath of fresh air - thankyou.
Posted by David Brown, 14:54, Tue 5 August 2008: (Is this post abusive?) #
This could have been written by the Labour Party of the 1970s. Maggie would never have stood for this wooly thinking. Post offices are just a business like any other. If they can't justify themselves in financial terms then they must close. They clearly are not fulfilling a need if the people are not prepared to pay for them. Let the Post Office close its branches and let the local community open meeting places and lifelines to the elderly if that is what they need. Don't get the issues confused.
Posted by Allandt Bik-Elliott, 08:54, Wed 6 August 2008: (Is this post abusive?) #
Businesses across the board have had to adapt or shut down because of the internet - look at the disarray that the music industry is in because of their steadfast refusal to change their business models (the prevalence of piracy is a direct result of tech-savvy kids wanting a better service than their parents had before the internet).
The fact is that people work longer hours and commute further (because of house prices within the city centres) and businesses of all types need to respond to that otherwise they will disappear. The ideas proposed in this statement will meet that need, just like they did when the Post Office added the ability to save money, pay bills and get application forms for the various governmental requisites. Before it did these things, it was a place where you sent mail.