Closures battle reaches No 10

By TOBY WALNE FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
Updated: 00:00 EST, 5 December 2006

Tony Blair was presented with an early leaving present last week - but one he did not particularly welcome. On Monday, Financial Mail knocked on the door of 10 Downing Street to present more than 10,000 pledges of support for our Save Our Post Offices campaign.

We left the Prime Minister with several post office sacks of readers' coupons calling for the present branch network not to be destroyed but to be given investment.

Financial Mail readers are demanding that the Government stops meddling by introducing changes that are forcing many branches out of business.

With the axing in 2010 of the popular Post Office card account and the loss of a £150 m a year rural subsidy from April 2008, only 4,000 branches are forecast to survive in ten years.

A total of 10,914 Save Our Post Offices coupons were presented to Number 10. These represented the opinions of users of 5,662 separate post offices.

Financial Mail has been overwhelmed with calls from readers wanting to fight further closures. Most people, from the young to the old, believe that post offices provide an essential social service for communities.

Martha Drysdale, 54, was among those to back the campaign. She completed a coupon when we recently visited Cromarty post office in the Highlands.

Martha, who suffers from osteoporosis and uses crutches to walk, explains: 'Our post office is far more than just a service - it is a community lifeline. How are elderly and disabled people going to survive without a local post office branch? It is shameful that the Government wants to scrap a vital community service to make a profit.'

Financial Mail launched its campaign four years ago. Then, we collected 20,000 petitions demanding to keep benefits books that the Government replaced with Post Office card accounts or benefit payments being paid directly into people's bank accounts.

Despite our protests, the Government forged ahead with changes, which helped to slash the then 18,500-strong network by almost a quarter.

But with the Government now planning to axe the card account in 2010, thousands more branches will shut because customers shall no longer use a post office. Vulnerable branches are also facing the axe because the Government wants the Post Office to turn losses of £111m a year for the network into profits.