Post Office chiefs face pressure to reopen Craigie service

Post Office bosses are under mounting pressure to replace a busy Perthshire service which closed without warning more than two months ago.

The Craigie branch shut down suddenly in September, forcing customers to use other outlets in the city centre, Muirton or Oakbank.

The Post Office has not revealed why the Abbot Road service was closed, stating only it was due to “operational reasons”.

Now in a letter to local Liberal Democrat councillor Willie Wilson, service bosses have said they still cannot say when the shop could reopen.

A member of the organisation’s national consultation team said: “I regret I am unable to provide a timescale at this stage.”

She added: “We do understand the concern that the temporary closure is causing our customers and do not underestimate the difficulties the local community will face during this closure period and apologise for the inconvenience.

“What I can confirm is that we fully appreciate the importance of maintaining a service to our customers in the community and take the temporary closure of this branch seriously.”

Mr Wilson has pledged to continuing pressing the Post Office to take action.

“This has now been over two months since the branch in Craigie closed,” he said. “This is totally unacceptable.

“The public are suffering due to the loss of this vital local service.”

No one from the Abbot Road Premier store, which housed the post office, could be reached for comment.

The Post Office’s High Street branch in Crieff also recently closed its doors.

More than a quarter of Scotland’s post offices have disappeared since 2002.

Rural communities have been among the hardest hit, with 22% of rural branches closing during that period. Campaigners say the scale of the decline has been masked by a large number of “temporary” branch closures, some of which have lasted for as long as five years.