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To find our lost post offices, just look up 20-year-old A-Z
• We protest strongly at plans to close the post office in Essex Road and the nearest sub-office (by bus, the two within reasonable walking distance were closed two and three years ago) and indeed at the whole approach the Post Office is taking to service provision.
While the government lends huge sums of our money to prevent a building society-turned-bank from meltdown, and as supermarkets spring up next door to each other in Essex Road, the Post Office, which has “an important social and economic role”, has only one long-term strategy: contraction. It is not as though, for all its ineptitude in retaining services, the Post Office is making a loss or even that it has shareholders to appease.
London residents already have fewer post offices per head of population than the country as a whole. Unless more customers are scared away, we are expected to queue for 50 per cent longer.
Islington is characterised by a unique mix of the very rich, for whom time is money and who therefore will be deterred by long queues, and the very poor, who are dependent on a local service to pay bills and receive cash which supports the continued existence of local shops.
The success of local shops and of post offices is intertwined, particularly in Essex Road and Newington Green, where there are now no high street banks. The Post Office seems unaware of factors like this.
Nor does it seem to appreciate that most of us do not actually live on the doorstep of the post office under threat. We were shunted from Southgate Road, from Downham Road, from St Paul’s Road and from St Peter’s Street as each of these was closed in turn. We were advised not to worry because there was another one behind.
Nor does the Post Office seem to appreciate there is a quid pro quo to its social responsibilities. Wetherspoon or Sainsbury’s would give their eye teeth for the free advertising it receives.
I have local maps going back to the 19th century and I use a 1990 A-Z to find my way around London. All these documents pinpoint post offices and the 1990 edition is closer to reflecting the situation in 1895 than the present day, so devastating have been the cuts in the last 20 years.
When the Southgate Road post office was closed it was claimed the business would transfer to other post offices. It now seems that was not the case. Therefore, it makes no sense to carry on with a strategy that has failed miserably, on the basis of a false premise.
We can have no confidence that this is now part of some master plan to guarantee 95 per cent of people a post office within a mile (not much use if you are one of the 5 per cent). The Post Office is telling people in Hackney it is only sub-offices that are under threat and there is no danger of the nearby Crown offices going, yet that is precisely what is proposed for Essex Road.
At the very least, the Post Office could state publicly that Islington Council’s foolish decision to sell off the freehold of 238 Essex Road precipitated its decision to propose closure.
This would at least give us ammunition to get the council to reverse its decision. We get the chance to vote for them every four years after all, and the initiatives now announced by Essex County Council and others will set a useful precedent.
However, if the Post Office has any regard for its important social and economic role, it should revisit the whole strategy, look at how it can win back lost contracts and at services it could provide without extending queues at busy times.
Andrew Bosi
Chairman, Islington Society
• I have been vicar of St Thomas Church Finsbury Park since 1989. The parish forms at least half of the area served by the Blackstock Road post office in Highbury.
I want to make the strongest-possible objection to the proposal to close this sub-post office.
I have two main reasons. First, the alternatives are not viable. The post office at Highbury Barn is three-quarters of a mile away up a steep hill beyond the capacity of elderly people, disabled people and parents with small children.
The post office in Seven Sisters Road is nearer but in a difficult place on a main road. The pavements are not only narrow but congested and not altogether safe.
Second, this post office is amidst a collection of shops which provide a public service for those of us who do not and have no desire to drive. The removal of the post office would threaten the viability of the shops too.
It is important the most vulnerable members of our society should have the facility to access services and shops as close as possible to where they live, where they can also meet their neighbours.
I am aware the concept of public service is unfashionable in our country but I hope the Post Office has not lost the desire to provide one completely as it responds to the government’s demand that it makes obeisance to the altar of profit.
It should reconsider this proposal in the interests of ensuring quality of life for those whom our society is inclined to neglect.
Rev Stephen Coles
St Thomas the Apostle
N4
• LABOUR councillor Martin Klute claims to be “shocked” by the news that Royal Mail plans to shut Essex Road post office in “his ward” (Post office a lifeline, February 29).
Come off it, Martin. As a Labour member you know as well as I do that the whole purpose of your government’s so-called “efficiency drive” for the postal service over the last four years has had one aim and one aim only. And that is to make it a leaner, meaner and more attractive proposition for investors and future privatisation. Hence the recent branch closures and cuts to the terms and conditions of Royal Mail employees.
Delivering public services into the hands of the private sector, regardless of the disastrous consequences to the communities they serve, is the name of the game these days under New Labour.
And sure enough, the business community is already crowing about the opportunity to profit from the deregulation of the Post Office.
Perhaps Cllr Klute’s real sense of “shock” comes from the fact that a post office closure is to take place in “his ward” where, presumably, he will be asking the community to re-elect him in two years’ time.
So maybe he should tell us why the post office in “his” ward should be saved as opposed to anywhere else. The Labour government is halfway through an exercise that will eventually lead to the closure of more than 2,500 of Britain’s 14,000 post offices. London alone is set to lose another 169, meaning a 45 per cent reduction to the capital’s post offices since 2004.
That’s why our local politicians insult our intelligence when they tell us to put aside politics and join their campaign to save the facilities that their own party is responsible for closing in the first place.
T CLAPHAM
Tiber Gardens, N1
• I attended the lively committee meeting on Tuesday when I repeatedly asked Councillor Lucy Watt whether, if push came to shove, the Lib Dem council would step in and save our threatened post office.
After five minutes of waffle, the conclusion was: “No. It was a government issue.” I hope the council will reconsider its position.
It would be highly foolish and cynical for the council to mount a “save the post office” campaign if it is in a position of power to keep it open and doesn’t. The voters of Canonbury and St Peter’s will not forget.
It is time to put party politics aside. Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives are running petitions on saving Essex Road. All parties need to combine their efforts to ensure the post office remains open.
I want the post office saved, and will campaign to ensure that anyone who plays a part in the closure is held to account for their actions or inactions.
Richard Bunting
Deputy chairman, Islington Conservatives
Halliford Street, N1
• THE post office situation has been caused by the high rents demanded by landlords, and property developers who are only interested in “greedy profit”.
Within the City of London, five post offices have closed. Now, the post office in New Bridge Street, Blackfriars, is to close. Reason: the rent demanded is too high. This means the west side of the Square Mile has no post office.
A few years ago the post office in Fleet Street closed and remains vacant. The ideal situation would be to relocate the New Bridge Street post office to Fleet Street.
Closed offices should re-open in supermarkets, with a practical rent negotiated, bearing in mind the needs of customers, particularly the disabled and elderly.
Edward Scilloe
Kelross Road, N5
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