Last Post Office in town centre to close

The last Post Office in a town centre is set to close after it was announced dozens of high street shops would be shuttered.

It was announced in July that up to 150 branches TG Jones, WHSmith's former high street business, would shut as part of a major restructure. Among them was the shop in Shropshire's Telford Centre, meaning the branch Post Office will now also close.

The Post Office is due to close on 2 January, a week before the TG Jones store itself is boarded up.

A Post Office spokesperson told the BBC they fully recognised "the challenging trading conditions that TG Jones and many other High Street retailers are facing at the moment".

They added that they were already looking for a replacement branch "as soon as possible", but the process could take around six months.

In the meantime, they said, customers could find alternative branches across Telford, including at Alma Avenue, Fourth Avenue and Oakengates.

A spokesperson for TG Jones said the company's "focus now is on supporting those affected and continuing to serve customers throughout the closure period".

Shoppers at the Telford Centre were divided on whether or not a Post Office was still needed in the centre of town.

Scott Green from Dudley, said he believed it was "still convenient for people to have a Post Office [and] all the facilities of the traditional Post Offices of the past".

Pensioner Beverley Stevens, from Leegomery, near Telford, agreed - adding that she felt "safer" using the branch in the Telford Centre.

"We should not be told where to go to a post office," Stevens said.

"I think you feel safer especially with us pensioners we still like to deal with proper money and and pay things off at the post office get your pensions and all that," she said.

But Helen Watson from Lawley, Telford, said she thought the Post Office was not as needed as it once was.

"I use the post office for, apart from dropping of parcels, to get foreign money but there are other places you could do that," she said.

"I occasionally get stamps there [but] you can get those from supermarkets, so is it necessary?"

The town's Labour MP Shaun Davies has called for plans for finding a replacement branch in the town centre to be "urgently set out".

He said he had contacted the Post Office directly to get clarity and to work out what arrangements are being made so people living in the town centre "can continue to have access to services".

"If there is going to be a gap between the existing branch closing and a new service opening, I want that gap to be kept as short as possible," he added.

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