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| CEO’s rose-tinted view of post offices | CEO’s rose-tinted view of post offices |
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| Perhaps Paula Vennells (Post offices offer a first-class experience, Letters, 26 September) would care to take off her rose-tinted spectacles for a moment and have a look at the more rural part of the Post Office (PO) network of which she is CEO. As a starter for 10, how many of the 11,500 branches are open for five or more days a week and for at least three hours a day? Not a very high barrier to clear, especially if a service such as special delivery is to have any useful meaning. Those failing this test are almost all going to be in rural areas – with many “branches” being a trestle table in the village hall open for only one day a week and for as little as an hour. | Perhaps Paula Vennells (Post offices offer a first-class experience, Letters, 26 September) would care to take off her rose-tinted spectacles for a moment and have a look at the more rural part of the Post Office (PO) network of which she is CEO. As a starter for 10, how many of the 11,500 branches are open for five or more days a week and for at least three hours a day? Not a very high barrier to clear, especially if a service such as special delivery is to have any useful meaning. Those failing this test are almost all going to be in rural areas – with many “branches” being a trestle table in the village hall open for only one day a week and for as little as an hour. |
| Question two: how many of the branches open late into the evening and on Sundays will be staffed at those times by people able to provide the services advertised as being on offer? Those failing this test are likely to be suburban convenience stores with only school-age part-timers in attendance – and even very computer-literate youngsters can be tied in knots by the vagaries of the Horizon system the PO uses. Unfortunately, one solution some store owners use is to close the post office at these times. | Question two: how many of the branches open late into the evening and on Sundays will be staffed at those times by people able to provide the services advertised as being on offer? Those failing this test are likely to be suburban convenience stores with only school-age part-timers in attendance – and even very computer-literate youngsters can be tied in knots by the vagaries of the Horizon system the PO uses. Unfortunately, one solution some store owners use is to close the post office at these times. |
| Question three: what has been the effect of the PO transformation on rural communities? A large proportion of village post offices are (were?) in shops with the footfall in one closely linked to the footfall in the other. While it is clearly no part of the PO’s function to subsidise a weak village shop, nor is it the function of a well-run shop to subsidise the PO. Some good shops have certainly not been prepared to take on a post office for this very reason and a few have even given up and asked the PO to make some other arrangement. Perhaps Paula Vennells would like to place a graph of her own salary’s changes over the past five or six years against that of the average rural sub-postmaster. | Question three: what has been the effect of the PO transformation on rural communities? A large proportion of village post offices are (were?) in shops with the footfall in one closely linked to the footfall in the other. While it is clearly no part of the PO’s function to subsidise a weak village shop, nor is it the function of a well-run shop to subsidise the PO. Some good shops have certainly not been prepared to take on a post office for this very reason and a few have even given up and asked the PO to make some other arrangement. Perhaps Paula Vennells would like to place a graph of her own salary’s changes over the past five or six years against that of the average rural sub-postmaster. |
| The PO is supposed to be filling in a lot of the gap left by bank branches closing. This is all very well provided the post office stays open. A quite substantial town in mid-Cornwall lost its last bank branch a few years ago, but then, in 2016, it lost its post office. It has no meaningful bus service, although it does have a railway station with a useful level of train service. How do people without cars manage? How do the many businesses in the town do their banking? Even the post office in my nearest town, which has already lost two of its three banks, can accept deposits and pay out cash – but when, after other transactions, I asked for a £20 note to be split into two £10s, I was told that they were not allowed to give change. | The PO is supposed to be filling in a lot of the gap left by bank branches closing. This is all very well provided the post office stays open. A quite substantial town in mid-Cornwall lost its last bank branch a few years ago, but then, in 2016, it lost its post office. It has no meaningful bus service, although it does have a railway station with a useful level of train service. How do people without cars manage? How do the many businesses in the town do their banking? Even the post office in my nearest town, which has already lost two of its three banks, can accept deposits and pay out cash – but when, after other transactions, I asked for a £20 note to be split into two £10s, I was told that they were not allowed to give change. |
| This same post office illustrated the “after hours” problem a while back. In the early evening I wanted to send a letter by recorded delivery – surely a pretty straightforward transaction – but the (older) person at the counter could not get the computer to do what was wanted and, after half an hour, asked me to come back the next day. Fortunately, on this occasion one of the day-staff came into the shop and rescued him. | This same post office illustrated the “after hours” problem a while back. In the early evening I wanted to send a letter by recorded delivery – surely a pretty straightforward transaction – but the (older) person at the counter could not get the computer to do what was wanted and, after half an hour, asked me to come back the next day. Fortunately, on this occasion one of the day-staff came into the shop and rescued him. |
| My local post office is an “outreach” branch operating in a side room of the pub – and open for useable hours four days a week. It is certainly very civilised to be able to sit at a table to do one’s post office business. However, if I hand in a special delivery item on a Wednesday morning, it will not leave until Thursday because Wednesday is the “base” office’s early closing day (remember them?) and the outreach person does not get back there until after 1pm. The postman calls in to the pub quite late in the morning, but is not allowed to collect anything from the “outreach” office in the same way that the same postman used to collect items when it was a normal branch in a shop over the road. Another seemingly arbitrary rule standing in the way of providing the best possible service. | My local post office is an “outreach” branch operating in a side room of the pub – and open for useable hours four days a week. It is certainly very civilised to be able to sit at a table to do one’s post office business. However, if I hand in a special delivery item on a Wednesday morning, it will not leave until Thursday because Wednesday is the “base” office’s early closing day (remember them?) and the outreach person does not get back there until after 1pm. The postman calls in to the pub quite late in the morning, but is not allowed to collect anything from the “outreach” office in the same way that the same postman used to collect items when it was a normal branch in a shop over the road. Another seemingly arbitrary rule standing in the way of providing the best possible service. |
| Having experienced the rural area, Paula Vennells might then like to take a trip to Plymouth. The “retail centre of gravity” there has moved quite decisively to the top of the town. Just the moment to close the main, Crown, post office situated right in the centre of things at the top end of town and move it to upstairs in WH Smith’s, which is way down at the bottom end. With a population of nearly a quarter of a million, is Plymouth the largest city without a main Crown post office? Oddly, one of Plymouth’s suburban shopping centres still has a Crown office. | Having experienced the rural area, Paula Vennells might then like to take a trip to Plymouth. The “retail centre of gravity” there has moved quite decisively to the top of the town. Just the moment to close the main, Crown, post office situated right in the centre of things at the top end of town and move it to upstairs in WH Smith’s, which is way down at the bottom end. With a population of nearly a quarter of a million, is Plymouth the largest city without a main Crown post office? Oddly, one of Plymouth’s suburban shopping centres still has a Crown office. |
| She can put the rose-tinted spectacles back on now, happy that Plymouth and south-east Cornwall are not at all like anywhere else in the country, and the examples quoted above are really quite the exception. If only…Keith PotterGunnislake, Cornwall | She can put the rose-tinted spectacles back on now, happy that Plymouth and south-east Cornwall are not at all like anywhere else in the country, and the examples quoted above are really quite the exception. If only…Keith PotterGunnislake, Cornwall |
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