Second class post

It has now been confirmed that the

Post office plan to go ahead with their relocation of the Wokingham Post office from its current site to WHSmith in Market Place in early June.

Following a Lib Dem proposal to Wokingham Borough Council in November, the council demanded that all the services currently available in the Post Office were transferred to WHSmith if the relocation went ahead. If this was not done then the council would oppose the re-location. We now wait to see exactly what services are going to be available in WHSmith.

The leader of the council, myself and our local MP met with the Post Office earlier this year in an attempt to stop the move. They were in no doubt that we opposed the move.

It was agreed that the Post Office would consult with local disability groups to ensure proper disabled access to the new Post office. Hopefully these meetings will take place in the next few weeks.

The Post Office approached the Council before Easter.

In Kendal the local Lib Dem MP Tim Farron personally delivered a petition to Senior Post office managers with more than 4,000 signatures. The Post Office was saved and it isn’t going to a branch of WHSmith, a great result for the people of Kendal who have a Lib Dem MP who works hard for the local community.

In Wokingham the Labour party collected a 5,000 signature petition to stop the relocation of the Post office to WHSmith. I wanted to know the value that the Post Office had put on this petition.

Bearing in mind the Wokingham one had more signatures but hadn’t been successful in changing the Post Offices mind.

I was told by Senior Post office managers that the petition had not been received by anyone at the Post Office. This begs the question, what has happened to it. Who was it given to, or is it still with the Labour party?

It appears that the petition has not been taken into consideration in determining whether the Wokingham Post Office should be relocated or not. 5,000 people who signed this petition have been seriously let down by the Wokingham Labour Party. Cllr Clive Jones, Deputy Leader of the Lib Dem group on Wokingham Borough Council