The petition gathered by Robin Hood Post Office has now been sent off with well over 2.000 signatures. Michael also presented the first 1100 signatures to the City Council to gain their support. The current edition of Focus has a petition that we hope you will sign. Representations need to be in by August 4^th. Please also make your views known by letter or by email to: consultation@postoffice.co.uk

There were recent debates on the threatened closures at Hall Green Constituency Committee and Hall Green Ward Committee. Michael moved resolutions at both meetings opposing closures. At the Ward meeting the resolution was: “Hall Green Ward Committee recognises the vital role of Post Offices serving the local community and as key businesses in local centres and calls for a thorough reconsideration of the closure programme so as to ensure continuity of postal services from Robin Hood Post Office, 1537 Stratford Road, Hall Green.”

A similar motion in broader terms was passed by the Constituency Committee, where representatives of the Post Office, as they must have expected, were given a hard time. But they did make it clear that the 2,500 closures were on the instructions of the Government. Postwatch, the knowledgeable but toothless consumer ‘watchdog’, were also present and will no doubt do what they can.

There are serious doubts about the genuineness of the ‘consultation’ and the validity of the calculations that underlie it. The House of Commons own Business and Enterprise Committee found that the post office network is actually subsidising Royal Mail’s letter delivery - run as a separate business in the tangled structure that successive governments have cobbled together and which makes about as much sense as the privatised railway system. Oh for the days of the GPO!

Furthermore, people are surprised that busy post offices face closure. In fact, 90% of closed post offices were profitable as shops. But Post Office Counters want to manage fewer post offices centrally and their central costs are used to justify the closure of profitable offices. But they allocate their costs on a per-office basis rather than by turnover. This results in a false measure of the central saving when a busy office is closed. So despite the pain caused, the Government won’t even make the savings that they trumpet! Thus does gross economic mismanagement run right through the system and affect us all in our everyday lives.