LETTER: Royal Mail puts profits before people

Dear Editor - News that the Royal Mail has doubled its profits over the last six months while over 1,500 post offices are to be shut down will incense your readers.
Royal Mail’s round of closures was based on economic viability, highlighting the hypocrisy of this £177 million profit.
The Countryside Alliance has campaigned hard for the thousands of threatened branches.
A lack of economic viability should never have been the main reason for closures.
Post Offices form the hearts of their communities and many isolated and elderly people will be stranded without them.
Royal Mail should perhaps consider that Post Offices are about people, not profits.
Simon Hart
Chief Executive
Countryside Alliance
367 Kennington Road
London
SE11 4PT

Post Offices - the hit list

THE Post Office has finally announced which branches it intends to close in a review of the service across West Somerset.
Two villages will be left without a postal service at all, while three others will see their branches replaced by a mobile Post Office which will visit for as little as three hours a week.
Bicknoller and West Quantoxhead are the two doomed to be axed completely, while a mobile library-style service is proposed for Brompton Regis, Wheddon Cross, Kilve, and Lydeard St Lawrence.
West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has vowed to fight the closures wherever possible.
Ironically, Mr Liddell-Grainger’s wife Jill is a voluntary worker in the sub-Post Office in their home village of Bicknoller.
The branch forms part of the village shop, which is owned by a co-operative of residents and runs entirely on voluntary unpaid help.
Mr Liddell-Grainger said: “I am deeply concerned about any rural service going, especially on the moor and across West Somerset.
“It is inexcusable that the Post Office allows yet another nail in the coffin of rural people.
“Every facility we lose, we become more and more like dormitory villages.
“I have already written to every parish council chairman and postmaster in the villages I am responsible for and I will find out what they want to do.”
In Brompton Regis, postmaster Peter Stringer said the closure would also mean the end of the village stores which he and his wife Jenny also run.
Mr Stringer said: “It will be the death of the shop because the shop cannot stand alone with the loss of income from the full-time Post Office.”
A public meeting is being held in Brompton Regis Village Hall on Friday evening at 7.30 pm for villagers to be fully informed by Mr Stringer of the consequences and to discuss the situation.
Mr Stringer said based on the original criteria used by the Post Office when reviewing its network, he did not expect to be on the closure list.
He said: “I assumed we would not be up for closure, being a remote rural settlement nearly 1,000 feet above sea level which can be cut off in bad weather and no public transport.
Mr Stringer said only last September he had received a 20-year long service award from the Post Office.
“Now, within six months they have given me my redundancy,” he said. “For me, it will mean unemployment and the search for another job, which is difficult in a rural community.”
Mr Stringer predicted the closure programme would see community facilities in many villages being lost as a result.
He said even if the decision was overturned as a result of the consultation process being carried out over the next six weeks, the ‘executioner’s sword’ would continue to hang over them.
“We would like to retire in two to three years’ time, but then we would know the Post Office will not renew the franchise and we would be left with a business which would not have any turnover,” he said. “You know you are on the hit list. You know if you want to sell on, they will not renew it.”
Mr Stringer said the mobile service which in Brompton Regis’ case would visit the village hall car park on Monday and Thursday mornings between 9.30 am and 12 noon, would gradually fade away.
He said customers would not be keen to stand in a queue in the rain when the weather was bad and many would in the meantime be forced to drive elsewhere to use postal services.
Mr Stringer said; “The Post Office is not all about making money. This is a Socialist Government we have, but unfortunately, they have very un-Socialist policies.
“They are ripping the heart out of this community for the sake of a few thousand pounds a year,”
The mobile service proposed for Wheddon Cross will visit the car park beside the Rest and Be Thankful public house for a total of nine hours a week, between 9.30 am and 12.30 pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
In Kilve, it will use the village hall car park for three hours on a Tuesday morning, from 9.30 am to 12.30 pm.
And in Lydeard St Lawrence, the village hall car park will be used for six hours, from 2 pm to 5 pm on Tuesday and Thursday.
West Somerset Council’s leader, Councillor Keith Ross, and economic development portfolio holder, Councillor Michael Downes, called on people to speak up for local Post Offices threatened with the chop.
Councillor Ross said: “Public consultation is underway and we will be expressing our concern.
“We would encourage residents in West Somerset to do the same.
“I have already taken up this matter with the Local Government Association, using the Post Office at Brompton Regis as a case study, and I will continue to campaign to keep essential rural Post Offices.
“While I understand that the Government needs to save money and promote efficiency, it should also look at the broader impacts that losing this service is likely to have on rural communities.”
Councillor Downes said: “In outreach service areas, current opening hours are likely to be slashed.
“Village shops and garages will be losing a postmaster or postmistress’s wage which will have a detrimental effect on the whole facility, and may mean that some community shops will have to close.
“This would be a bitter blow for local people who depend on the shops, garages and Post Offices, as well as the local economy as a whole.
“West Somerset has one of the highest elderly populations in the country and many people depend on these shops.
“People who are unable to drive will suffer, and the environment will suffer.
“Drivers will have to use cars to access services that are currently available on their doorsteps, which will increase the local carbon footprint.
“I would urge people to take part in the consultation and make their views known.”
Up to 2,500 Post Office branches are earmarked for closure across the country by the Government following a study which indicated that the public is not using the full range of services offered.
People can take part in the consultation, which runs until April 9, by sending their views in writing to the National Consultation Team, Post Office Ltd, FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM (no stamp is required).
The closures are due to take effect from July.
Post Office Ltd regional development manager Tony Jones said: “Taking the decision to close any Post Office branch is always very difficult and we know will cause concern to many of our customers.
“We want to ensure that everybody who uses, relies on or has any concern with Post Office Ltd services is both fully aware of the proposed changes and able to give views on them.”

Delay in naming PO closures

AN announcement of which West Somerset communities stand to lose their sub-Post Offices under swingeing Government cuts in Royal Mail services has been delayed until late next month.
Public consultation is due to start in February on the proposed closure programme - but as yet nobody outside Post Office Ltd and the Government knows which services are at risk.
The Government has ordered the Post Office to cut its network of offices over the next 18 months by 2,500 nationwide.
However, it still wants to ensure that almost nobody in a rural area such as Exmoor is more than three miles from their nearest Post Office ‘outlet’.
So, it is proposing to replace some rural offices with part-time or mobile postal services to help meet the new standard.
Now, The Post has learned that a six-week consultation on proposed closures locally will not start until ‘towards the end of February’.
And the identities of the threatened Post Offices will not be made public until the actual day the consultation starts.
A Post Office spokesman told The Post: “What happens is that on the first day, in the morning, we will send out a press release which will give a list of the offices proposed for closure and a list of those proposed to close and have an outreach facility put in their place.”
The spokesman said no firm date could be given because the details of the proposals were still being prepared.
He said the process of engaging local councils, MPs, and the Postwatch consumer body in the programme had begun in December.
Campaigners fighting the cuts programme were not optimistic of any success, after hearing that only 10 of the first 230 offices earmarked for closure in other areas had been saved through the consultation process.
But West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger told The Post: “Whatever the announcement is, I will be fighting every single one in conjunction with the postmasters.
“It is not acceptable for an area such as ours, which has enormous rural tracts, to be deprived of services.
“The Government is well aware of my feelings already. I have made it plain to them in letters and meetings. I will continue to fight the issue.”

Postmaster buys Post Office to secure service for Dulverton

POST Office services in Dulverton have been saved for the foreseeable future after Christopher and Christine Dubery succeeded in purchasing the property at a London auction.
Mr and Mrs Dubery owned a lease until 2013 on the two-storey property in Fore Street, but auctioneers Savills put the freehold up for sale on behalf of Land Securities Trillium Property Partnerships, which was consolidating one of its property portfolios.
Mr Dubery travelled to London to bid for it and succeeded at a price of £215,000 after a competing bidder pulled out.
Mr and Mrs Dubery now have to await the outcome of a Government review of the Post Office service before they can be certain of carrying on in business.
The Government plans to close a further 2,000 sub-Post Offices nationally and will announce the fate of those in the Taunton area in December.
For Mr and Mrs Dubery, it was a relief to acquire the freehold of the Dulverton building, as they also live there.
Mr Dubery, who is currently also temporarily running the sub-Post Office in Milverton, said: “I have been to auctions before for things like antiques, but nothing with property, and being that we live there as well there was extra tension.
“I think the adrenalin was pumping quite a bit. It was quite nerve wracking.”
Mr Dubery said it would now be business as usual, pending the Government review, although he was quite confident Dulverton would not be among those listed for closure.
He said: “We will carry on living there and running the Post Office, and hopefully we will be there until we retire.”
Mr Dubery has also applied recently to Royal Mail to take over the Milverton sub-Post Office on a permanent basis.

• Our photograph shows Dulverton sub-Post Office. Photo submitted.