"The Government has decided that up to 2500 Post Office branches across the UK will close. This local consultation will not change the Government decision, but aims to help Post Office Limited identify if the appropriate branches in this area have been proposed for closure."So says the leaflet I picked up in the post office today. Instead of having a village post office that is open for 16 hours, four days a week with a heap of handy parking for those of us who live out of the village, they are proposing a mobile service open for a total of five hours, two mornings a week, and that we should instead use another post office 4 miles away (8 mile round trip) that is on a fearfully dangerous bend on a main (well, main for round here) road, with parking for one car.
They say that we can also use online services, but the village has been refused broadband by BT.
I am appalled that a Labour government is overseeing the dismantling of rural community services and at their failure to ensure equal access to key services across the country. They are a suicidal government.
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11 comments:
It's all hopeless - the sooner they go, the better
It's unbelievable.
Tax increases for the unemployed, University fees, closing Post Offices.
I suppose Bliar kept it going because he was such a smoothie and had a good soundbite machine.
Sorry Gordon ...RIP.
What comes next? Unthinkable.
Have just learned that our Mid-Devon village is destined to suffer the same fate as yours. For us it's a six-mile round trip to the nearest alternative. In the meantime, the village shop, which houses the post office, only survives because of the post office. So, when the post office goes . . .
I despair of this government and dread the next; from Stalingrad to Toffs Rule OK . . . This way madness lies.
I'm appalled at the loss of so many post offices. I don't know what our village would do without ours .. but I guess the government don't really care. Ours, like many, is a general store and newsagent as well. It's also an off-licence, and it takes in dry cleaning too. There's parking for about half dozen cars, with care, and what's more, there's a community notice board with for sale/wanted ads and 'what's on'. And an ATM. I'm hoping the fact that none of the surrounding villages has a PO will help keep it open, but I'm not convinced. And if it goes, the shop won't keep afloat by itself, the whole lot will go. Bah!
The same is happening in Belgium in big cities and in rural areas.
It's dreadful.
I quite agree - it just gets worse and worse. My mother is suffering the same threats in her village adn those stupid eejits in Westminster don't KNOW or care how it affects so many people. I despair.
Hello Mopsa dear. Went for a spot of Purcell last night by the way so thought of you. Every single post office on the NE consultation list is to be closed. Our main post office is already a Wetherspoons. You can't get a stamp but the service is better, sigh
So sad, but it doesn't surprise me.
This Government knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
If they trimmed down their "living" expenses and other claims, who knows what services we could continue to enjoy.
Bah!
Ours is likely to close too - and with it the village shop. Another nail in the coffin of rural life.
Looks like I'll have to get into my 'old' car (which will soon cost me more to tax,) use up some fuel (how much a litre now!?!) increase my carbon footprint and go and find somewhere that is open...
WW - the alternatives are just as ghastly; I despair.
KAZ - unbelievable is the word - not only does power corrupt, it makes you blind and deaf to reason and principle.
60-16 - we are in accord, much good that will do us.
Jay - that's the case here too - no PO, no shop.
Eurowoof - I hadn't realised this was a beyond UK thing.
Fpot - it's a bonkers situation
Rilly - you have resurfaced! And into the new labour gloom - sigh!
SM - bunch of parasites. Where are the Dennis Skinner and Mo Mowlam successors when you need them to shine a light?
M'ear - a new identity? And yes, the environmental impact just infuriates me, as does the £.
My husband reckons that New Labour have it in for the countryside as it is "traditionally Toryland"...as Maggie closed down the Labour coal mines. Time to get their own back. The difference is that the coal mines were uneconomic and something had to be done. The PO could be made to be viable but no-one in t'Govt. wants to be bothered with it. Our local PO is facing the chop. It's the only one actually sited on Hadrian's Wall (Gilsland). Think of the touristic licence to print money there? Unbelievable. I'll stop ranting (just for now).
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