What is the future for our Post Offices? A question the government posed four years ago.
 Campaigns to save Post Offices from closure |
Around 200 urban Post Offices in our region are facing closure.
In October 1999, the Prime Minister asked the Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) to draw up a strategy for the future of the post office network.
Sixteen months ago the government made �180m available to Post Office Ltd to carry out its "Urban Reinvention Programme".
In effect an urban closure programme. A population greater than 10,000 is regarded as urban, so that is most of us.
Before any changes are made, a formal consultation process has to be carried out, and that is what has been happening around our region.
Postwatch have just decided which offices in Ipswich could face the axe. The proposed closures are;
- Valley Way Post Office, Newmarket, Suffolk
- Melton Post Office, Woodbridge, Suffolk
- Felixstowe Road Post Office in Ipswich, Suffolk
- Ruskin Road Post Office in Ipswich, Suffolk
- St Johns Post Office in Ipswich, Suffolk
- Wherstead Road Post Office in Ipswich, Suffolk
- Barrack Corner Post Office in Ipswich, Suffolk
- Ulster Avenue Post Office in Ipswich, Suffolk.
Only Huntingdon and Norfolk have yet to hear which offices there might shut.
Local 'discussions'?
Elsewhere many of our MP's have become embroiled in local arguments.
Cambridgeshire North Conservative MP Malcolm Moss joined a protest with residents in Wisbech.
Campaigners in Cambridgeshire North calculated that people will have to walk a combined total of 2000 miles a week to get to their nearest post office.
And Stevenage MP, Barbara Follett (Lab), has also written to the Post Office raising her concerns over closures there.
In January 2004, John Baron, Conservative MP for Billericay asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to urge Post Office Ltd to re-examine the case of the closure of two Post Offices.
Likewise in February 2004, Bernard Jenkin the Conservative MP for North Essex asked about the number of post offices which have been closed in his constituency since 1997.
 |  The Post Office has to adapt to changing customer demands  |
Both were told by Communications Minister Stephen Timms, MP, that they were matters for Postwatch.
Mr Timms said; "The Post Office has to adapt to changing customer demands and it is doing that under the Urban Reinvention Programme.
"If it does not adapt it will slip into terminal decline."
Sustainable network
 95% of the urban population will live within a mile of a Post Office |
Post Office Ltd and Postwatch, the consumer watchdog for postal services, say the aim of the closure programme is to create "a sustainable network of viable post offices where customers can continue to enjoy access to the full range of services".
At the end of the programme, over 95% of the urban population will still live within one mile of a Post Office and the majority within half a mile."
So how do you balance many different demands?
On one hand Post Offices are the backbone of communities, an integral part of efficiency for many businesses and a vital lifeline to many vulnerable groups like elderly and disabled people.
On the other hand they have to provide a living for the people that run them and, it is hoped, a profit for the Post Office Ltd.
Consultation needed
It is consulted on every closure and monitors the programme as a whole. Nevertheless closures often face strong opposition and decisions have been overturned.
In response to concerns over the scale of the closures the Government has tried to improve the way Post Office Ltd consult on their proposals.
The Government has said Post Office Ltd do not have a predetermined list of offices which will close, nor is there any arithmetic formula which will determine the number of closures in any given area.
Proposals for closures under the programme will be determined by how many offices are close to each other in the area, the current and projected business volumes and whether individual sub-postmasters have indicated that they want to leave the network.
That is small comfort to those who rely on them.
Politics Show East wants your views. Let us know what you think.
That is the Politics Show Sunday 29 February at Midday.
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