North Wiltshire MP James Gray has sent a strongly-worded response to Tim Nickolls at Post Office Ltd in response to the Post Office’s consultation on Post Offices in North Wiltshire, outlining in detail his objection to the proposed closures.

He also raised the issue with Ministers yesterday in the House of Commons during Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform questions.

Read on to see Mr Gray's letter in full, and yesterday's Hansard.

17th January 2008

Tim Nickolls Esq.,
Network Development Manager,
Post Office Ltd.,
FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM.

Dear Mr Nickolls,

Thank you for your letter of 6th December, enclosing the area plan proposal for West Berkshire and Wiltshire, in which you propose the outright closure of seven Post Offices in my constituency, and the effective closure of three more by converting them to what you describe as ‘Outreach Post Offices.’

You will know of my fundamental and principled objection to the Government’s requirement that you should close up to 2,500 Post Offices, such as those in my constituency. Firstly, the Post Office, particularly in remote rural areas, provides an essential service for citizens, especially for some of the most vulnerable in our society, including the elderly, disabled and those with young children who might well find it hard to travel to one of our towns for their benefits or stamps, or other services. Second, the income from the Post Office very often will make the difference for the village shop between staying open and closing and the village shop is truly the heart of village life. Third, the local Post Office provides an essential social service. Some elderly people quite look forward to their weekly outing to collect their pension. And sharp-eyed sub-postmasters and mistresses will quickly notice if they don’t turn up one week. It’s a place for a chat as much as anything else. And fourth, if it were handled correctly, local post offices could offer so many more services than they currently do - every kind of banking, postal, insurance, travel agency as well as car licensing, Passports and such like. But Post Office Ltd just doesn’t seem to have that kind of vision. It’s only recently that you started to allow customers to use a credit card!

You could even argue that the more remote the Post Office is, the more important it is, and the less used it is, again the most likely it is to be essential for the small number of people who use it.

My view is that it should not be a question of profitability or saving money, but of providing an essential service to the people of this country, and Labour’s determination to close 2,500 Post Offices will rip the heart out of our rural communities and is a piece of vicious vandalism of which you in Post Office Ltd are the unfortunate perpetrators. So I start by an outright and principled objection to the closures across England.

Turning now to the detailed proposals in my own constituency, I think that there are quite a number of reasons why you should reconsider your proposals. I will touch on each of the Post Offices in North Wiltshire in turn.

1. Proposed closures 

Prospect Post Office, Corsham
This Post Office services a good number of people in a particular part of Corsham which while it is only a mile or so away from another branch, is geographically separated from it. It is a fifteen minute bus ride to the centre of town, the bus having no wheelchair access. The proprietors of the Prospect Post Office had been given encouragement that their Post Office was safe, and they have laboured on in the expectation that it would provide a pension for them. This announcement has come as a very bitter blow to them and the people of Prospect whom they serve.

Lowden Post Office, Chippenham
Rather like the Prospect Post Office the Lowden branch services a particular part of the town of Chippenham which is geographically remote from the centre even if relatively close as the crow flies. There is a significant shortage of parking anywhere near the main Post Office in Chippenham and this closure will be of great disadvantage to the very many elderly and disabled people who live close to it.

Lydiard Millicent Post Office
Despite its apparent proximity to Swindon, there is in fact no bus service at all from Lydiard Millicent to Shaw in Swindon. The Post Office is very conveniently situated in a Garden Centre with large car-parking available and serves a population of some 6,000 who are very dependent on it.

Lea Post Office 
This is a typical village Post Office which is open every morning and provides an essential service for the admittedly small population of the village of Lea. It is a fifteen minute bus ride to Malmesbury and there is relatively infrequent bus service.

Kington St Michael Post Office
I was particularly disappointed by the proposal to close Kington St Michael Post Office, which I myself opened a few years ago, amongst a great fanfare from the Post Office about how this was a living example of their readiness to outreach to rural communities. The Post Office is co-located in the village hall with a small convenience store and would seem to me to be a classic example of exactly the kind of service which we ought to be providing for our rural communities. It is proposed that the people of Kington St Michael should use the New Road Post Office in Chippenham which, you argue, is only 2.5 miles away. I find that very hard to believe and at all events there is hardly any parking available at New Road and a relatively large number of people in Kington St Michael with no car. 16% of the population is retired and 10% have no car. Your proposal that the other alternative branch for Kington St Michael would be Sutton Benger is so ludicrous as barely to merit comment. It would be wholly inaccessible for the people of Kington St Michael.

Charlton Post Office
The Charlton Post Office is open on only Tuesdays and Thursday mornings and provides a valuable service for the people of this rural hamlet. It seems to me astonishing that you should not be able to maintain even this very limited service.

Bradenstoke Post Office
Bradenstoke is a village separated from your proposed alternative of Lyneham by the vast bulk of RAF Lyneham itself. As you have already acknowledged in your letter to me, the details which you provide in the consultation document of the bus service are incorrect. It is actually extremely difficult to get from Bradenstoke to Lyneham and I strongly suggest that you should reconsider this closure. Incidentally, your proposed second alternative branch at the RAF station itself is absurd because it is inside the wire and therefore will be only available for those who have security clearance from the RAF.

B. Proposed Outreach Post Offices

I have a very large degree of scepticism about your notion of “Outreach Post Offices,” in this case being an outreach from Quemerford Post Office in Calne. Lacock, Hullavington and Yatton Keynell are all extremely remote from Calne and entirely disconnected from it, and it is hard to imagine how any such “outreach” could work. Looking at each of three Post Offices in turn:-

Lacock Post Office
The Lacock village store depends to a significant degree on the income from the Post Office for its continuing viability. You have proposed a massive cut in the income for the Post Office which, particularly given that the Post Office is rented from the National Trust, makes it simply unviable. The Post Office is occupying valuable shop space in a very important tourist centre and I can see little likelihood of the Outreach Post Office continuing there. The National Trust have expressed their strong opposition to the effective closure of the Post Office.

Hullavington Post Office
Post Office services in the village of Hullavington are supplied in the village shop and again, the viability of the shop might well be affected by their effective withdrawal. Like many of the others mentioned above, Hullavington is actually quite remote from either Chippenham or Malmesbury and this effective closure would have a devastating effect on this small rural community.

Yatton Keynell Post Office
In my eleven years as MP for North Wiltshire I cannot remember receiving as large a correspondence on any subject as the closure of Yatton Keynell Post Office. The people of Yatton Keynell are particularly annoyed by the fact that your figures appear to be based on the performance of the Post Office under previous management. A dynamic new team took the Post Office and shop over only six months ago, and have already made useful strides in turning it around. Your consultation document, which incidentally misspells the name at one stage, does not appear to be aware of that fact.

As the MP for the whole of North Wiltshire, it would be quite wrong if I differentiated amongst the ten which are proposed for outright or effective closure. However it does seem to me that in a number of the instances outlined above, there are either errors in your proposals, or very striking particular reasons for you to think again. I was disappointed by your employees’ remarks at a meeting which we had recently, that if any of these arguments were to persuade you to reverse your decision with regard to one particular Post Office, then that would result in some other Post Office, not so far listed, being closed. This was a matter which I raised with Ministers in the House of Commons earlier today, from which you will see that he re-confirmed that you are not required to close 2,500 Post Offices, but “up to 2,500 Post Offices.” In other words, it should be perfectly possible for you to find a way of saving some or all of the North Wiltshire Post Offices, without necessarily having to close any of the others.

I would be most grateful if you would take these remarks into account in considering the outcome of the consultation process.

Yours sincerely,

 

James Gray MP

---
Hansard Extract from Thursday 17th January 2008
Oral Questions to the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform

Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): Under the consultation process in my constituency, which ends on 31 January, 10 post offices are threatened with closure, which is some 33 per cent. of the total. Post Office Ltd indicated in a recent meeting with me that we could perhaps save one or two if we found some factual error in the consultation process, but I was told, “If you save one post office, we will have to close another one because the Government have required us to close a total of 2,500. Therefore, if one is saved, another has to be chopped.” Will the Minister take this opportunity to confirm to Post Office Ltd that the requirement is not to close 2,500 post offices, but to close up to 2,500 post offices? In other words, it is possible that some of my 10 post offices might yet be saved.

Mr. McFadden: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the figure is up to 2,500 post offices. I must tell him that Post Office Ltd also has to bear in mind the fact that the average amount it is saving from closing a branch that has been scheduled for closure is £18,000 per annum per branch, although the figure will vary depending on the individual circumstances of the branch. That is why replacements have been announced where decisions have been made not to proceed with closures. It is possible that Post Office Ltd might not take this approach in every instance, but there is a cost involved in making such a decision. That is why things have happened in the way that the hon. Gentleman set out.

Latest Articles	Most Read Articles
Advice Surgery - Civic Centre, Royal Wootton Bassett Advice Surgery - Jenner Hall, Cricklade God Save the Queen Advice Surgery - Hobbes Parlour, Town Hall, Malmesbury Advice Surgery - Corn Exchange, Town Hall, Calne	MP raises unemployment in North Wiltshire in Commons Question Time MP tours Swindon and Cricklade Railway project Advice Surgeries Popular Links A-Z All Party Group for Multiple Sclerosis