Not just letters are at stake if the Post Office shuts up shop
‘Vital lifeline’ being cut with branches closing
FOR Jeremy Findlay, a councillor in East Lothian, the local post office is so much more than simply a place to buy a stamp or draw your pension. ‘It may sound old-fashioned but the post office is a club, a lifeline for elderly people on their own,’ he says.
That lifeline was extinguished for the residents of Gullane, a picturesque village on the Firth of Forth, at the end of 2016, when the local post office was ‘temporarily’ closed.
Residents in the seaside idyll, renowned for its golf links and windswept beach, were assured the post office would reopen in a nearby shop to help the local population, which is set to grow by a third thanks to new housing developments.
But Gullane is still waiting for its permanent post office replacement.
Meanwhile, villagers are forced to rely on limited services within a convenience store and a temporary post office, open for just two hours every Wednesday afternoon.
For older residents, a trip to the nearest post office in Aberlady or North Berwick isn’t practical, says Mr Findlay.
He adds: ‘We have a higher than average elderly population, with quite a lot of houses that are some way from the nearest post office. If you don’t have a car, it means a bus and a lot of hanging around and that just isn’t an option for many people.’
And the reason for the closure? Mr Findlay is clear: ‘The Post Office decided to close here, and they did it by not paying the postmaster enough to survive.’
With around two bank branches closing every day in the UK, communities also rely more and more on their post office for basic banking services.
Most high street banks will let you carry out simple transactions at the post office such as paying bills, depositing cheques and getting a print-out of your balance.
So when towns such as Gullane lose their Post Office they also lose a vital banking option.
And Gullane is not alone. Scotland has lost 501 of its 1,904 post offices since 2002, including almost one in four of rural branches.
Other recent casualties include Innerleithen in Peeblesshire and Scone in Perthshire, with Blairgowrie also under threat.
Campaigners believe the Post Office is closing rural branches by stealth and the Communication Workers Union says hundreds of its members have been forced out by low pay.
MEANWHILE, at the end of last year, a Freedom of Information request revealed a further 776 sub-post offices had closed but were recorded by the Post Office as open. More than half had been shut for 18 months or more, some for five years.
The Post Office insists that they are all ‘temporary’ closures, but it also acknowledged that it has tried without success to find operators for the closed branches.
Calum Greenhow, postmaster at West Linton, Peeblesshire, and chief executive of the National Federation of Subpostmasters, says: ‘We are concerned at how many have been closed for more than 18 months. That is not a temporary closure – that is closure, period.’
Nina Ballantyne, postal policy team manager at Citizens Advice Scotland, says villages such as Gullane can be hit particularly hard by post office closures. She adds: ‘We believe they are a vital part of the community. Individual closures can have a significant impact on local residents and small businesses.
‘This is particularly true in remote rural areas where there are limited other services available.’
The Government’s response has been to step in and support community branches, often the last shops in the village, with the promise of £160million of new funding.
Mr Greenhow says the funding for rural branches is essential, as they ‘would not survive’ without subsidy.
He adds: ‘Despite longer opening hours, the number of people visiting Post Offices continues to fall and subpostmasters are finding it harder and harder to make a living.’
The Post Office made a £13million profit last year.
Mr Greenhow says: ‘Ninety-eight percent of the Post Office network is operated by small business people, or franchise groups – it’s on their backs that this profit is being made.
‘We await further detail around how this money will be spent. We would like to see investment in new technology, improved infrastructure, and fair commission rates so that our members have a fighting chance of earning a return on their investment.’
Meanwhile, bank branches are closing at a record rate. Money Mail reported last November that more than one in five bank branch closures in the past three years were in Scotland.
Last year 115 branches closed, on top of almost 200 in the previous two years, out of a total of around 1,600 closures UK-wide.
One-third of all banks that were open in Scotland in 2013 have closed, leaving fewer than 750.
RBS also came under renewed fire in April when it was disclosed that stopping times for its mobile branch in some Highland areas had been cut to 15 minutes.
The Federation of Small Businesses claims the Post Office services are ‘simply not up to scratch’ in replacing banks, with slow cash and cheque processing and a lack of basic services such as inter-account transfers.
At a Scottish affairs committee inquiry into the RBS closures in Februrary, MPs questioned the Post Office on staff training standards, the potential for post office closures, and whether its operators were paid enough for banking transactions.
But the Post Office says its role is of increasing importance and insists it has the capacity to replace bank branches.
UK Finance, the trade body for the banking industry, and the Post Office are launching a media campaign to raise awareness of banking services available at Post Office branches for communities with lower bank branch coverage.
Meanwhile, the Post Office points to a reopening in Finstown, Orkney, and a new mobile service on Harris as cause for hope.