Memorandum submitted by Judy Robinson
(POS 29)
Further to my telephone call of 25 January I
wish to put the general case against the current closure programme.
I use a specific Post Office to provide exemplars of the true
impact to users.
The case is that, whereas the Government envisaged
the closure of up to 2,500 Post Offices as a means of shedding
the biggest loss-makers, Post Office Ltd has seen this as a way
of achieving a rundown of the network, choosing to set aside accessibilty
issues and regardless whether the targetted offices were loss-making
or not.
We feel dismayed and alarmed that the needs
of disabled people and the more vulnerable members of local communities
have been ignored.
The Post Office Ltd's own document, Appendix
1 (Branch access report (not printed here)) to an Area
plan proposal, sent to the L.A. on 1st October 2007, states of
Sherwood, the only alternative on a bus route " There is
a step into this branch". There is also no space inside and
no parking for users of a motability scooter. The area in question
is in the top 10% for Disability, Deprivation and Health concerns.
I send attachments as exemplars of the accessibility issue. Further
attachments relate to the impact on small businesses (not printed
here).
I submit these for the consideration of the
Committee to draw on if it so wishes.
1. Five stories I collected by talking to
disabled customers of Carrington Post Office Nottingham describing
from their perspective what the loss of their post office would
mean to them.
2. The warden from a Flexible Support Options
house indicates how crucial Carrington Post Office is to the people
she refers to as her "ladies". These are typical of
people for whom the local post office is at the perimeter of their
physical abilities (0.3 miles in the Flexible Support case)—they
have to stop to draw breath several times on the journey there.
The post office is a public place which is secure for them in
that they know that they will be tactfully and sympathetically
treated there. They are amongst those users whose fragile and
minimal independence may be said to be invested in their local
post office.
3. A small selection of the very many letters
written by other users who have an interest in the retention of
Carrington post office. Since your time is severely limited may
I draw your attention to two letters in particular?
4. A local architect, Mr Boyd McAfee, is
one of many to represent the interest that businesses have in
the survival of Carrington Post Office and, in his final sentence,
he makes the point that what PO Ltd will represent as cost savings
will, in fact, be a charge transferred (in lost productivity and
in increased travel) to him. Other protests, by way of example
of the impact across the network, have been received from a dental
practice, a structural engineering consultancy, an e-Bay trader,
which would be adversely affected by the loss of this profit-making
post office. Moreover the 18 or so retail outlets in the same
parade as the post office for which Carrington Post Office is
the hub have also made—so far unheard—representations.
27 January 2008
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