Post Office in confusion

Nice point made by Cllr David Parker at the public scrutiny meeting on proposed post office closures at County Hall yesterday (Friday)...

All the consultation on the proposed Network Change closures assumes the Morpeth Main Post Office is in Back Riggs - so post office users from Mitford or St Mary's Field are being referred to Back Riggs as their 'nearest'. Unfortunately - the Back Riggs Post Office is due to close at the end of October, and even if it is 'saved', it will be somewhere else in the town. So as David says - the consultation is flawed and should be withdrawn.

Personally - I think the consultation is also flawed because there seems to be no requirement to have a 'sustainability appraisal'. Government legislation requires all local authority plans and strategies to have an appraisal - I'm surprised that the Post Office Network Change strategy doesn't. Such an appraisal would immediate flag up things public transport access, and how other community activities and local businesses depend on the local post office.

Any delay in the closure programme would be useful - because it might give the new unitary authority a chance to get it's act together and 'do an Essex' to save the post offices. Or at least work with parish councils, community groups etc to provide 'Plan B' alternatives if the Post Office goes ahead with closures based on a very narrow concept of what a post office is about. It's reminiscent of the flawed analysis Beeching used when he just looked at ticket sales to determine which rail stations to close.

Campaigning against Post Office closures

Good rapid response from the LibDems in starting a petition again closure of St Mary’s Field Post Office. And – of course, we should all be campaigning to keep all our post offices open. They are a community service not a business and should be considered as such.

However – I’m going to nitpick about the LibDems’ approach:
i) We need to campaign to keep all our post offices open. If we campaign heavily to keep a particular post office open – then Post Office plc will simply close another one whose supporters are not so loud. And often, it is the more deprived communities who fail to put together an articulate protest – and so lose out.
ii) I’m all for ‘community leadership’, but somehow it strikes me that councillors should be supporting and facilitating community campaigns rather than initiating them. But then, the LibDems got elected to the unitary authority, not me – so maybe I’ve got it wrong.
iii) And – it seems odd, that the political group in power is leading a campaign calling for action to be taken – that’s far more the action of an opposition political group. Maybe the LibDems haven’t yet got their heads round the fact that they are in power.

No sign of the LibDem-run unitary preparing a ‘plan B’ to take on the post offices (like Essex CC) if Post Office plc decides to close them – nor any sign of the unitary intervening in the imminent closure of Morpeth Main Post Office. These are the sorts of things I’d expect the political group in power to be doing – not raising petitions

Save our post offices - Save our communities?

The last stage of the Post Office's 'rationalisation programme' comes to the Borough next month. They'll be carrying out a six-week consultation from 3rd July (right over the holiday period) on which village post offices should stay open. Their criteria will be based entirely on a limited 'business case' model - looking purely at the cost-effectiveness of the narrow post office services being delivered.

This was the main topic at the Borough Parishes Meeting on Weds (11th June) - with the Borough Council looking to support parishes in making their cases on the PO criteria, and avoiding a 'divide and conquer' which would see parishes competing with each other to retain their own post office.

Unfortunately - there wasn't anyone from the Post Office there - but David Stewart from NE Rural Affairs Forum argued strongly that post offices were often the centre of a whole range of wider community activities, which will be (and are) lost when they close. He also outlined a range of 'Plan B' options for running post offices in village halls, churches, pubs or running mobile post offices in conjunction with other services (eg health, libraries, IT centres, council one-stop-shops). You don't necessarily have to use the term 'community hub' if you don't want too.

As he said - the Post Office is run with a subsidy which Government is withdrawing - that subsidy could be taken up by other (or groups of other) more local organiasations eg in Essex where the County Council is picking up the tab.

So - outcome from the meeting (as far as I'm concerned) was that we need parish councils and villages to identify what services are broadly linked to or depend on the post office and will be vulnerable if the post office closes (or disappeared when the post office did close). This is then evidence - both for the narrow-focussed Post Office consultation and for the unitary authority, care trust, police, parish councils, belonging communities and anyone else looking to provide services to rural communities. A bit of co-ordination and co-operation could do wonders.

Incidentally - not quite the same problem with Morpeth Main Post Office, but it is very vulnerable too. The Co-Op franchise runs out in October. I gather there are two or three potential new franchisees, but there is apparently no obvious site (50 m2) in central Morpeth. Any suggestions?

An Apology?

2nd April: Ok - that was a rather wishful April Fool (though it caught a Morpeth Herald reporter!) - public agencies like the post office don't generally admit mistakes or apologise.

So - in less than six months time, the Co-Op franchise post office in Back Riggs will close - and to the best of my knowledge, there's no new franchisee - let alone a new site - in view.

There's a lot of political talk that the new unitary authority might 'do an Essex' and run rural post offices itself - but I can't see that being sorted out within the next six months.

I've also heard rumours that GMDT are talking to Business Link with a view to taking on the Post Office - but if so, they are being (necessarily) secretive about it.

So - if you've heard any rumours - or you actually know what might be going on, please post a comment here!

1st April: The Post Office has apologised and admitted that they were wrong in closing the Crown Post Office on Oldgate.
"We now recognise that a market town like Morpeth which serves a wide community needs a main post office."
Plans are in place to re-open the Oldgate Post Office when the Co-Op franchise post office in Back Riggs closes at the end of October.

Future of Back Riggs Post Office

It’s looking grim!
The Co-Op has pulled out of the franchise arrangement and the Back Riggs Post Office is scheduled to close at the end of October.

Morpeth has to have a main Post Office. It’s part of its function as a market town, especially as more and more rural village post offices are closing.

I’m sure if local government wasn’t in quite such a turmoil, Northumberland would be one of those fifty plus councils asking Essex County Council how they are planning to run post offices.
Maybe sometime in the future, a local post office would be part of a ‘community hub’ in several villages, alongside a library and a council one stop shop. But that won’t be for a few years (if ever).

And we’ve got just seven months. We urgently need both a new location for a main post office and a new franchisee. Maybe GMDT or Business Link should look at it? Though I’m not entirely sure that having the post office in the Chantry would be a good idea.