POST OFFICE CLOSURES

[shocker]

When my mrs went to the post office on monday she was met by a weeping postmistress who had just been told that the P.O was to close on wednesday. This was the first she, the manager/postmistress, had heard of it. And this is not a sub P.O, it is a main, high street, town post office. The only one in town, admittedly a small town, but the nearest main office is now 6 miles as the crow flies but by road much longer and scant public transport. Admittedly (again) there is a sub post office on the other side of town but its a hour round trip up steep hills on foot and no good for the disabled.

Anyway, BBC backed this up tuesday by reporting that 60 plus main P.Os are being shut and that staff were told at 10am monday.

So, funny thing is, when I emailed my MP and councilors I had a response telling me that the town council had been aware of this for a year or more. But had not seen fit to tell anyone least of all the P.O staff. I discussed this with them today and they genuinely had no warning. They were however told that if they could find a space with mains power for free that they could continue to run a P.O counter...at minimum wage.

Then today I get a letter from "HM Govt." ,not any agency, just HMG, telling me that all my pensions etc must now be paid into a bank account. The system I have used until now is a Post Office account that my monies are paid into, I visit the P.O and get cash out, pay my bills and so on. But this is being withdrawn and so I am informed, I must get a bank account and use that instead.

So, no conspiracy theory, no paranoid delusions...I just dont like being told what to do and how to do it !

We all know the value of supporting the local cash economy so when I contacted the mPs,MEPs councilors and P.O, I offered them my spare room that I pay bedroom tax on run a post office counter from. It has a window that opens onto the street that could serve as a hatch and they could be secured inside. Cushty I thought, wont even have to leave the house to use the post office and I will be free of the bloody bedroom tax.

Funny, I havnt been taken up on the offer...

...now I am of to a) have a tantrum, and b) sulk

[diamond lil]

Our nearest PO is 20 miles down the road and there is one bus an hour. We have a wee postvan that treks all round the Border villages - comes from a base 45 miles south. We have one road in and out, and a lot of snow, accidents causing the road to close, punctures, cracked windscreen, etc etc - The bloody thing is hardly ever here .

[shocker]

When I lived up on the moor I had a similar situation, however I am now in a busy, famous holiday town with many multi million pound second homes where a huge redevelopment of the seafront and harbour is about to begin. Thats not exactly the situation where you would expect this kind of closure.

An update is that they offered the post mistress minimum wage to run a post office if she could find premises...that she would have to pay for, if cost there was. Minimum wage to manage what effectively is a bank/bureau de change/delivery office, with legal personal responsibility of all funds ? Not good.

Still, it enables the P.O central office to say "well we offered the job and no one took it so obviously we did right". Another piece of centralising and depersonalising our world.

I brought this up not as a "poor me" issue, many people are much worse off as has been illustrated, more as an example of what is going on with our local services. Its "do it all online" whether you like it or not which is all dandy until the lights go out one day.

Again, off to sulk...