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Labour’s
Post Office cuts will hit the vulnerable the hardest Uncertainty
for local Post Offices and residents across Hove and Portslade Mike
Weatherley, Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hove and
Portslade, has expressed grave concern
at Government plans to close 2,500 Post Offices across the country, on top
of the 4,000 already shut since 1999. The cuts will start next summer. In Hove and
Portslade, this could potentially mean the closure of 2 Post
Offices, from the current level of 14. Mike said: “Post
Offices are the lifeblood of Hove and Portslade community. But their
future is now under real threat. These cuts will hit the vulnerable and
the elderly the hardest, as well as having a huge impact on mothers,
unemployed and the sick who currently receive benefits through the post
office. Labour Ministers need to
recognise that if the local Post Office closes, often the last shop in the
vicinity closes as well, and a van for a couple of hours a week is no
replacement for a Post Office open full time.” Conservatives have called for Sub-Post Offices
to be given greater freedoms to offer a wider range of commercial products
and are pushing for more Post Offices to be ‘one stop shops’ for
central government services.
11 February 2007
Notes
to Editors The Government made a
statement on 14 December 2006 launching a consultation on its plans for
the Post Office network. It calls for major cuts in the number of Post
Offices. The overwhelming majority of remaining the Post Office network
are sub-post offices run by private businessmen and women. The Government
plan states: “We will provide
support for a restructuring of the network with up to 2,500 closures
within that framework which will maintain a national network.
Subpostmasters leaving the network under the restructuring programme will
be compensated. We expect that Post Office Ltd will implement this process
over an 18 month period from summer 2007” (DTI, The Post Office Network,
December 2006, p.6). http://www.dti.gov.uk/consultations/page36024.html An estimated 4,000
Post Offices have already closed under the current Government. The Labour
Government’s Post Office Minister told Parliament, “the reality is
that too many offices are chasing too few customers to be viable” (Jim
Fitzpatrick MP, Hansard, 16
October, Col. 618). The Chief Executive of
Royal Mail has even said that he wants to reduce the Post Office network
from 14,500 to just 4,000 Post Offices (The
Times, 19 May 2006). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2187445,00.html Giving
Sub-Post Offices greater freedoms to offer services Conservatives
would rewrite Sub-Postmasters’ contracts, allowing them to provide a
greater range of products and services, including private mail services. ·
The long-term future of the network will be best secured if the Post
Office is opened up to new markets and new customers. ·
Just as many pubs that were tied to one brewery are new free houses, so
Post Offices should be released from their ties and made able to offer a
broader range of services. Using
Post Offices as ‘one stop shops’ Conservatives
will investigate a scheme whereby people who have concerns about a range
of Government services can use their local Post Office as a kind of
‘Government GP’. Trained
staff in Post Offices could then advise on a range of matters, including
tax returns, pension entitlements, the opening hours of local pharmacies,
how to apply for a disabled parking badge, and the like. ·
The Government has looked at this idea on a number of occasions
have been a number of plans and pilot schemes aimed at using Post
Offices as a ‘one stop shop’ for accessing a wide range of information
and services from Government and related bodies. · Despite their good intentions the Government have achieved little more on this than a small handful of pilot projects. |