Demise of the High Street post office

HIGH street post offices could be ‘extinct’ within two years, a union leader warned last night.

CWU boss Dave Ward said more than 100 ‘crown’ post offices – the large branches in town centres – had already been closed or merged into shops such as WH Smith, with another 60 set to disappear this year.

He warned that over the next two years the same could happen to the remaining 260.

It comes as hundreds of post office workers and managers plan to strike on Thursday in protest at the ‘managed decline’ of their industry. Mr Ward told the Morning Star: ‘Unless we take a stand now on this issue, in a couple of years there will be no Post Office as we know it.’