| Topic: | Save our local Post Offices? Is Essex Council showing the way? | |
| Posted by: | John Horrocks | |
| Date/Time: | 22/02/08 18:13:00 |
| We are all concerned at the closure threat faced by our local Post Offices and wonder where the process will end. The community in Thamesfield Ward will have no post office facilities between the railway and the river if the present closure proposals for Putney are implemented. This is why I was interested to hear Lord Hanningfield, the Conservative Leader of Essex County Council being interviewed on this closure matter, recently, on the Today programme on Radio 4. He explained that post office closures in his area could result in new demands being placed on his council's services, because of the needs of those who would be most likely to suffer from the loss of the post office facilities. He argued that it could be good value for his council to step in and try to keep the post offices open - as a charge on the Council Tax in Essex. To find out more, I looked on the Essex website: essex county council uk, where I found Lord Hanningfield's blog dated Thursday 21 February. He explains that his authority is the first in the country to open negotiations with Post Offices Ltd and the Government to consider the financial implications of his council taking over responsibility for those post offices threatened with closure. He does not say how far these negotiations have progressed. Essex County Council, the website claims, provides "the very best quality of life in Britain". Is all this something we should be asking our Borough Council to be looking into to see if it would enable our Putney post offices to be saved? After all, we all pay for our local open spaces through our Council Tax, so would it be reasonable to think about our local post offices in a similar way, I wonder? |