Council gathers information for Post Office response

Shropshire County Councillors heard the latest position on the Post Office closure programme at a meeting this week.

The cabinet was presented with a report at its meeting on Wednesday (21 May) which outlined the background to the current consultation process, as well as giving details about a recovery and support programme.

In the Shropshire County Council area, there are 12 Post Office branches listed for closure and 12 proposed to be replaced by “outreach” services.

Council officers say there has been significant success in improving these outreach proposals in certain areas following discussions between the Post Office and communities.

Although not yet finalised, proposals at Acton Burnell, Norton, Snailbeach and Wentnor now involve services being provided from more appropriate sites than mobile facilities in car parks.

The recovery and support programme outlined in the cabinet report involves business support and advice provided by the county council, Business Link and other partners. There are also more innovative suggestions of how to boost trade through marketing techniques and diversification of local businesses.

The consultation period ends on 9 June, and Shropshire County Council is working to gather as much evidence as possible before submitting its response to the Post Office.

Councillor John Hurst-Knight, cabinet member for economy, said: “We are still in a consultation period, and are working hard to make sure that Post Office Ltd has the most accurate information about the communities and the impact of closures on them. We are helping the communities and businesses affected to negotiate with the Post Office on individual closures, and to achieve better outreach proposals.

“We aim to make a robust response to the Post Office and then, when we know which branches it actually intends to close and what the final outreach proposals are, we will help the affected communities and businesses to recover from the effects of the withdrawal of services. If there are opportunities at that stage to help retain some of the postal services in some better way than the Post Office is proposing, then we will look at them.”

22 May 2008