More Post Office nonsense

The Post Office has announced that it is willing to negotiate with the Council to provide replacement services for the community served by the former Lower Richmond Road branch.

But at the same time it has refused to consider negotiating a similar return of service for the area served by the Putney Bridge Road branch - on the ridiculous basis that doing so would put at risk the viability of surrounding branches that have survived to date.

The absurdity of this position beggars belief. First, which branches do they believe will lose so much custom if the branch in Putney Bridge Road is re-opened? There aren't any post offices in the locality. Only in the surreal world of the Post Office would the provision of services in Putney Bridge Road affect branches in Barnes, Parson's Green or Garratt Lane.

Second, they cannot possibly argue that basing services in St Mary's Church in Putney High Street - if indeed they are considering such an idea - would be ok for Lower Richmond Road but not Putney High Street: St Mary's is equidistant between both branches.

And third, our predictions about the failure of the Upper Richmond Road post office to cope with the additional custom - when it was already failing to provide a decent service before the two branches were closed - are becoming reality. People - especially the elderly - are finding it very difficult to get to the Upper Richmond Road branch; and if they manage that difficult feat despite the lack of direct public transport options they're met with abysmal service.

The Post Office really needs to overhaul its whole business model, because the current one that has seen these ridiculous closures in Putney is clearly flawed. They refuse to publish in any detail their financial forecasts to justify closure, their definitions of local are preposterous, and their investment in the remaining branches is non-existent.

Not good enough.

Post@St Mary's?

The news that Revd. Giles Fraser and St Mary's Church are in discussions to see whether they can take on some of Post Office functions when the two local branches close is a glimmer of hope and I wish Dr Fraser well in his negotiations.

It's important that the council doesn't use this offer to avoid serious consideration of whether it could integrate its services with the post office - for example at the Parking Shop in Lower Richmond Road. However, in terms of location and accessibility I can think of few better locations than St Mary's Church.

Post Offices to close: council should now step in

Despite informing us that they would not be making a decision on their closure programme until the middle of June, eight weeks after the end of their consultation process, the Post Office yesterday rushed out its decision after barely four weeks' reflection.

It is extremely disappointing that neither of the Putney branches our community has fought so hard to save have been given a reprieve by Post Office Ltd, and so the existing branch in Upper Richmond Road (which is so unsatisfactory as it is) will become our only branch between Putney Hill and and the Thames.

There remains one last chance to save at least one of our two valuable and valued local Post Offices, and that is for the council to now step in and seriously investigate taking over the operation of these branches. The council has been vocal in its campaign - but now it needs to do more than just complain: it needs to act.

As Essex County Council and Cambridge City Council have shown by taking over branches in their areas and combining services they provide with postal facilities, this is a practical and demonstrably achievable outcome. There is, for example, a council parking shop in Lower Richmond Road about 100 metres from the post office. There is surely no reason why the services the parking shop offers, along with the ability to pay council tax and rent and all the other transactions we have with the council cannot be merged to keep this busy and popular local branch open.

I am - again - dismayed at the thoroughly unprofessional way the Post Office has sprung its decision upon us. It shows a distinct lack of courtesy to the hundreds and hundreds of us who took the trouble to give them our views who had to learn of this via yesterday's Evening Standard or BBC London News. The rush to get a decision out in half the time they said they would take suggests the most cursory lip-service was given to our representations. The entire consultation process has been governed by a complete lack of transparency.

By announcing the reprieve of a couple of branches close to us - one in Fulham and one in Wimbledon, the Post Office will no doubt claim that it has listened and responded. I disagree.

You can download the Post Office decision booklet which gives a cursory paragraph or two to each of its closure decisions. I'll write more about what I think of their arguments in a subsequent post.

My Post Office response

I've just submitted my formal response to the Post Office on their consultation over the proposed closures of the branches in Lower Richmond Road and Putney Bridge Road. You can download it here.

I've also submitted over 700 response cards and online petitions that residents have sent back to me: this is getting on for a 20% response rate which market research experts tell me is a very high return, so thank you if you took the time to respond to my campaign.

There are still two days to register your views - write to:

Anita Turner
Network Development Manager
Post Office Ltd.
Freepost Consultation Team

or email consultation@postoffice.co.uk

Keep track of my Don't K.O. our P.O.s Campaign

I've just added my work on saving our local post office branches to the list of key issues on the side bar. if you scroll down on the right, you'll find this the second issue listed, after dangerous dogs. That means that you can now read all the entries to this blog that I've made on the specific issue of post offices rather than ploughing through the main page or the monthly archives.

You can also keep in touch with what I'm doing on this and other local issues by signing up to my monthly e-news bulletin: click here to add yourself.

And if you haven't yet signed my online petitions, there's still time: click here for the Lower Richmond Road branch and/or here to save the Putney Bridge Road branch.

Tonight's Post Office meeting

I had the opportunity of addressing tonight's meeting on the proposed closures by The Post Office of their branches in Lower Richmond Road and Putney Bridge Road.

Almost 200 residents attended tonight's meeting as did representatives of The Post Office and PostWatch, which I applaud them for given the hiding-to-nothing they, unsurprisingly, got.

I made the point that sticking a poster up in the branches under threat and making available some notices within them is not close to being satisfactory consultation. Nor is the shortness of the consultation period - inexcusable given that they reached the decision about which closure proposals to proceed with back in December. And their response: that the consultation period is fixed and unmoveable, is - I understand - simply wrong.

The Council representative present was asked about the innovative approach taken by Essex County Council in taking over local branches threatened with closure. The council replied that the branches Essex are taking over have already been through the consultation process and have now been confirmed for closure, so they're further down the road. They undertook to give serious consideration to similar measures if our local branches are confirmed for closure after we've made our case for a reprieve.

The next step in our campaign - and to date almost 700 of you have responded: thank you so much for the cross-party support I've received over this - is for me to make my formal submission against closure backed up by the response cards and online petitions you've sent me.

More on this soon.

Post Offices: will Wandsworth follow the Essex lead?

Essex County Council has been negotiating with the post Office to take over the running of Post offices in their county. The BBC are covering the story here.

This issue has already been the subject of some debate on the Putney SW15 website; it's also something that Labour Councillors in Wandsworth have been investigating.

The Essex plan is important because so few local Post Offices win reprieves once they have been tagged for closure. It's of course important that any deal between the Post Office and Council Tax payers don't just end up subsidising the branches instead of national taxpayers (every week, the Post Office needs a £2million subsidy).

I'd like Wandsworth Council to look at a similar deal to save the Lower Richmond Road and Putney Bridge Road Post Office branches. Whether or not they have the courage to follow Essex County Council's lead, there are other ways the council could support Post Offices - by making it possible for residents to collect council benefits and pay council tax or rent at local branches; even by combining housing offices with post offices, possibly as part of a one-stop-shop facility for the community. There are so many innovative and enterprising possibilities here.

I commend Essex County Council - a Conservative-run authority - for its innovation. It seems to me that this is now a fundamental test for Wandsworth's Conservative council. Are they genuinely committed to saving local Post Office branches and doing the right thing for local people - or in fact do they actually want to see the Post Offices closed so that local Conservatives can continue to play politics?

Why not attend the public meeting the Council's holding this Thursday at St Mary's Church, 7.30pm and find out?

They don't even know which post offices they're closing!

I've just heard that the Post Office branch in Fulham Road, which the Post Office claims in its closure consultation notices is "in your area" as an alternative if they shut the Lower Richmond Road and Putney Bridge Road branches - is also being closed.

London Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone is already seeking a judicial review of the Post Office's consultation on the grounds that it is of insufficient length (among other arguments) - so, if correct, the fact that the Post Office are also publishing incorrect information and don't even seem to know which branches they're attempting to close can only strengthen this case.

A quick update: I received over 140 response cards today alone, so thank you so much to everyone who has replied so far. If you've yet to send your card back please do so; and if you live outside the area we delivered them to but still want to register your views, you can do so online.

Just go to www.stuartking.net/postoffice if you want to protest the closure of the Lower Richmond Road branch, or www.stuartking.net/post for the Putney Bridge Road branch. Or why not sign both petitions?!

UPDATE 29.02.2008: The Post Office is in fact closing the Fulham Road branch at the "Putney" end of Fulham Road - the one near the junction with Fulham Palace Road; the branch referred to in their closures paper is staying open but this is the Parson's Green branch right up near Fulham Library.

Our Post Office campaign gets going

This weekend local volunteers delivered letters, posters and campaign response cards to around 4,000 homes (and 6,000+ residents) in Putney that will be affected by The Post Office's plans to close two of their branches.

If you've been out and about in Putney Bridge Road and Lower Richmond Road over the past couple of days, maybe you'll have seen that we've enlisted the support of lots of local businesses who are also displaying our "Don't K.O. our P.O." posters.

I was able to visit both local branches this weekend. Outrageously, the Post Office forced the Postmaster in Putney Bridge Road to sign a document promising not to help those of us fighting to keep his branch open: and while I'm not sure what they could do if he reneged on that promise (shut him down? - oh no, been there, done that!) being an honourable man he is abiding by his word.

That hasn't stopped us though. The Post Office thinks that just delivering four or five boxes of their "consultation" leaflets to the branches affected meets their obligation towards giving the community a reasonable say. It does not. That's why it's so important that, if you value the service your local Post Office branch provides, you write to The Post Office expressing your views; you sign my petition; you display a poster and you encourage your friends, neighbours, work colleagues and anyone else you can think of to do the same.

What's becoming clear is that The Post Office is not basing its decision on any in-depth analysis of the local economic and geographical circumstances of each branch they're proposing to close. In fact, their closure plan is so random I wonder whether they just stuck pins in a map blindfolded.

The response to my campaign has already been impressive. I'll keep you informed regularly here, but if you haven't registered your views yet please do so at:

Lower Richmond Road Post Office: www.stuartking.net/postoffice
Putney Bridge Road Post Office: www.stuartking.net/post

Save Putney Bridge Road Post Office campaign now live

I've now set up campaign pages to help residents living near the Putney Bridge Road Post Office, also threatened with closure. This is the second Putney branch the Post Office is seeking to close, after they announced plans to close the one in Lower Richmond Road yesterday.

So, if you want to support the campaign to save Putney Bridge Road post office, please click here.

And a reminder that if you want to support the campaign to save Lower Richmond Road post office, please click here.



Of course, you're very welcome to support both campaigns - the more responses, the stronger our case! And if you intend to respond directly to the consultation, do please copy me into your letter, as it will help strengthen our collective voice. The consultation address to write to can be found on the campaign pages above; to copy me in, e-mail me at stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk, or write to me at Putney Labour Party, 35 Felsham Road, SW15 1AY.

Don't K.O. our P.O.

I learnt late yesterday afternoon that plans have been published to close two of our local Post Office branches in Lower Richmond Road, on the corner of Erpingham Road AND in Putney Bridge Road, near Oxford Road.

Anyone who's been around in Putney for more than five minutes will know that Lower Richmond Road has already lost a post office, a few years ago, and this plan will remove any proximity to postal services for a community relatively isolated, bordered on three sides by Putney Common, the river Thames and the mainline railway.

That's why it's frankly laughable for The Post Office to claim that "in the area" are no less than five other branches: one in Barnes, two in Fulham and the others in Upper Richmond Road: a good half an hour's walk or two bus journeys just to get there.



I'm not someone who believes that post offices deserve to be kept open by some divine right. The public is subsidising the Post Office to the tune of £3 million a week because of the losses they are making. Where, in the past there have been duplicate services in close proximity and branches that are hardly used, it is right that Royal Mail considers their future. But these branches are not duplicates - they're busy and popular - and perhaps most significantly of all the area they serve is a genuine community that values their post offices.

Those are the reasons I've launched the campaign to save the Lower Richmond Road Post Office - you can find out more at www.stuartking.net/postoffice. If you're in the area surrounding the Lower Richmond Road or Putney Bridge Road post offices you'll be hearing from me soon with ways to get involved and help stop this K.O. of our P.O. - but I'd welcome your support where ever you live and whichever political party you vote for: this isn't a party political issue.

We have until 2nd April to make our views known about the closure plans: as well as signing my online petition you can also write direct to Anita Turner, Network Development Manager, Post Office Ltd, FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM or email consultation@postoffice.co.uk. If you could copy me in to your submission this will help strengthen our collective voice against these plans.