Browse Sections

• Education
• Special reports

Post office rescue plan rejected

Exclusive by Chris Jones
17/ 7/2008

TOWNSHIP councillors in Middleton have rejected a rescue package for a closure-threatened Langley post office.

Councillors have turned down the idea of entering into talks with the Post Office to look at the possibility of spending £20,000 from Township funds over three years to keep the Bowness Road branch on Langley open.

It comes after Rochdale and Pennine Townships voted in favour of entering into discussions with the Post Office to subsidise five branches threatened with closure in those areas.

At last Thursday's Middleton Township meeting, councillors discussing the proposed closure of the Bowness Road branch under the Post Office's Network Change Programme rejected subsidising the branch after quizzing a Post Office representative.

Instead they backed a motion opposing the closure of Bowness Road branch and called for better services at Middleton central Post Office.

Middleton Township Committee chairman Cllr Peter Williams, passing the resolution, said: "The Township opposes the closure of Post Offices where this unduly affects the services provided to communities and will look at any proposals that may save Post Offices.

"The Township is also concerned that insufficient attention was given to enhancing the remaining Post Office facilities in the last round of closures and the appalling queues that now occur outside Middleton’s Central Post Office with elderly people often queuing in the rain to collect their pensions. It calls on the Post Office to enhance the central Middleton facility."

Rochdale Township chairman Councillor William Hobhouse, the architect of the subsidy plan backed by Rochdale and Pennine Townships said the decision not to follow the lead of Rochdale and Pennine Townships was a missed opportunity.

He said: "As the end of the consultation period with the Post Office is the 21 July I really feel that Middleton Township has missed the boat on this."

Councillors at the Middleton Township meeting said they had been confused over conflicting reports suggesting all Post Offices across the Rochdale Borough had been saved, when in fact the decision by Rochdale and Pennine Townships only referred to talks over five Post Office branches in those areas.

Cllr Hobhouse added however that the scheme was more than a political gesture.

He said: "The political will for this exists in Rochdale, and there seems to be support amongst most of the post masters to stay open.

"The last part is the final agreement from the Post Office to go ahead with the scheme."

Middleton MP Jim Dobbin said: "I am aware that postmasters who were to remain open were scathing about the Lib Dem proposals as it put existing viable branches in jeopardy. I refuse to mislead people over this sloppy, shambolic Lib Dem offer."

Tell us what you think. Email your views to: middletonguardian@menwn.co.uk , click on 'Submit comment', or write to Readers Letters, Middleton Guardian, 24A Fountain Street, Middleton, M24 1AH.