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Our long wait for post office
•JAMES Taylor’s letter suggests that he has only recently become aware of the long-running battle to reopen our post office on Haverstock Hill (Post office problems, May 17).
It was probably not intended to be patronising, but it is the case that by now the Belsize Post Office Action Group understands very well most of the procedures of setting up a sub-post office.
The post office on Haverstock Hill was closed “temporarily” in March 2004 and, since then, literally every year we have received promises from the Post Office to re-open a post office on Haverstock Hill.
The latest promise was received on May 4 in answer to an open letter from the leader and deputy leader of Camden Council.
The post office on Haverstock Hill, leased by sub-postmaster Jittendra Patel, was successfully run by him for about 15 years before it closed in March 2004.
Mr Patel then turned his premises into a bagel shop, which it remains.
The shop immediately next door, Actionmate, is owned by Minesh Patel, who is willing to open a sub-post office there. He had Post Office training in 2006 and was offered some financial help, but not enough apparently, to convert the shop. He is still hoping to do so and is waiting to hear from the Post Office.
As an alternative, another shop at No 211 Haverstock Hill is at present empty. The Post Office could contact the landlord of those premises, advertise for a new sub-postmaster and solve the problem without wasting any more time or losing any more business in this busy shopping area.
What everybody here wants is a normal postal service dealing with letters, stamps, parcels, licences, bills and savings.
The Post Office could retrieve some of its lost reputation in Belsize Park by immediate and effective action now.
GENE ADAMS
Alan Brownjohn
Belsize Post Office Action Group, NW3
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