800 POST OFFICES AXED
NEARLY 800 sub-post offices have been closed secretly – despite Government pledges to keep branches open.
Figures obtained after a Freedom of Information request show 776 branches have been shut “temporarily” – more than half of them for 18 months or more.
Temporary closures, usually when a postmaster quits without being replaced, have shot up from 651 in March 2015.
But they are not recorded in Post Office figures showing it has an 11,600-strong network which has shrunk from 19,000 in 2000.
The Post Office insists the 776 branches will reopen when new postmasters are recruited.
But Mark Baker of the Communication Workers Union’s postmasters’ branch, who helped make the Freedom of Information request, said hun- dreds of his members are being forced out by low pay. He said: “The Post Office moved the branches on to a separate database because it knows damn well they will not reopen. “The reason they are kept as a separate set of figures it that bosses have combed the area and they can’t find anyone. “Many postmasters can no longer cope on the small amounts of money the Post Office pays them and are quitting.” Yet Post Office boss Paula Vennells said this week that it made a £13million profit in 2017, its first for 16 years. Ms Vennells, who has a £671,000-ayear pay and perks package, added the Government was investing £370million, including £160million for small branches. She said the Post Office is “well placed to embrace the future” and that 7,000 branches have been transformed into “modern retail outlets” with longer opening hours.