Browse Sections

• Education
• Special reports

Post Office won’t extend consultation deadline

David Edwards
28/10/2004

MORE information has been issued by the Post Office on why they want to shut down five Middleton post offices. It comes in a report to Rochdale Council Cabinet which says the Post Office did not open consultations until 23 September asking for responses by 3 November.

The Post Office has refused a request from the council to extend the consultation period to allow the closures to be debated at Middleton Township Committee on 18 November. The report said: "This is a matter of concern to the public, and particularly to those who use the post offices to collect payments of welfare benefits."

It said the Post Office claimed the Middleton branches had very low customer bases and little potential for growth. The sub-postmasters were faced with increasing difficulties in making a living and maintaining presentation standards. The closures would boost the remaining branches, all but two of which have also seen a dramatic fall in business. The closures will enable £34,000 to be spent on improvements to the remaining sub-post offices in the town.

Council-compiled statistics show that of all the closures, the one involving the post office in Manchester Old Road, Rhodes, would have the most severe effect on the community. It serves 2,600 people, of which 544 - or 20 per cent - would be left further than half a mile from a post office. There were a further 547 with a long-term limiting illness.

The report said: "The Post Office's overall objective is to ensure that 95 per cent of people in urban areas still have a post office within one mile of their home as the crow flies. Its proposals for Rochdale Borough would achieve this objective but ignores two points.

"Firstly, some within a mile as the crow flies will face longer, actual journeys. Secondly, even a mile takes an able-bodied person about 20 minutes to walk on average. But many of the Post Office's customers are older people, those with disabilities or those with children, who can take longer to walk a mile."

The Cabinet concluded that while the business reasons for the closures appeared compelling and the overall strategy might have merit, it was important to attend to how the proposals will affect more vulnerable groups of people.