Yeovil Post Office Closures

Kevin Davis reports that all 5 Yeovil post offices are to close, after the 'consultation' period. The full document from the 'network change programme' (Newspeak for Post Office Closures Agency), reports that 3 out of 65 Somerset post offices have been reprieved after the consultation, but the rest are to close as planned. The document lists, branch by branch, the reasons for its decision. Very sad.

Post Office Closures Fightback

This was in my Inbox on return:

‘A group of communities fighting plans to close their Post Office branches has launched a national organisation, Communities Against Post Office Closures (CAPOC) and hope that their experiences of dealing with the nationwide plan to shut 2500 branches will help other communities who may not yet know they're being targeted. The website, www.postofficeclosures.org.uk, contains a wealth of hard-learnt lessons, advice on how to fight PO Ltd proposals, contacts in the media, politics, community affairs and other protest groups, briefings, copies of reports, documents and links to other useful websites, a forum in which to share views and opinions and much more.’

Time to consignia the closure programme to the recycling bin. This is not just about money, somehow Gordon £rown and the government doesn't understand that.

Somerset Post Office Closures: - Updated 26th Feb

The decision on Post Office closures in the Bristol and Somerset area is due to be announced tomorrow (26th February). The initial plan will be published here, followed by a 6 week consultation period, then an announcement of the final plan for the area.

The consultation process is pretty short, so any local churches or other organisations need to be ready to respond to proposed closures with practical proposals for a local 'outreach' service, if that's going to be feasible in your village or neighbourhood.

UPDATE:
The plan has now been published, you can see it here in full and there are links to 2 supporting documents on this page.

Summary:
A reduction from 389 to 324 post offices, all to comply with 'minimum access' requirements.
77 branches supported which are the only local retailer, 100 are the only local access to cash.
93 out of 100 people whose local branch will close have another PO within a mile

7 branches to be replaced by outreach services:
Brompton Regis
Charlton Horethorne
Churchinford
Kilve
Lydeard St. Lawrence
North Cadbury
Wheddon Cross

Branches earmarked for closure are on p22-4 of the report.

Local closures near Yeovil
Keinton Mandeville
Kingsodon
Sparkford
RNAS Yeovilton

and 5 in Yeovil constituency
Barwick
East Coker
Goldcroft
Haselbury Plucknett
Mudford

Update 2: reaction from local politicians:
David Laws MP
Kevin Davis (Conservative)

Post Office Christmas Cards: Get the Facts Right

I've had 3 emails from separate sources this morning all forwarding this:

"Royal Mail has traditionally alternated between sacred and secular designs for their Christmas stamps and this year it is the turn for a religious image. Royal Mail has issued two sets of designs this year. The main set of designs, available in all the main denominations is of angels, which is vaguely Christian but not explicitly so and certainly not specifically Christmassy. They have also issued a 'Madonna and Child' design for first and second class only. Post Office staff have been instructed to only sell this design if people specifically request it, but obviously people can't request it if they don't know it exists! If people don't buy these stamps, Royal Mail will claim there is no demand for religious Christmas stamps and not produce them in future. Please therefore ask for 'Madonna and Child' stamps when you do your Christmas posting and also tell your friends, contacts etc. to do the same."
Thank You.
http://stores.lulu.com/roycatchpole

The Post Office have said:

‘We have become aware of an incorrect assertion being made about the motives behind the sales of our Christmas stamps. There is absolutely no intention on our part to suppress sales of the Madonna and Child stamps in order to be able to claim there is low demand for religious stamps in future years. Indeed, we have produced tens of millions of them, and we want to sell them!! We have given publicity to both types of Christmas stamps, and the availability of both has been widely covered in the national and local press. Furthermore we plan to have the Madonna and Child stamps available every Christmas in future, alongside each year’s “special” set, which will continue to alternate between religious and secular themes.
Any help you can give in restoring the balance would be much appreciated.
Jonathan Evans OBE, Company Secretary, Royal Mail Group'

Dave Walker has posted here and here on the topic. I'm repeating his message because
a) I already get enough emails, without getting the post office scare story email again

b) Spreading these kinds of stories damages the credibility of the church when we have anything important to say. 'Christians? Oh yes, they're the people who don't check the facts'. As people who have a message to communicate, credibility is all important. To simply jump on some scare story and forward it on without checking it isn't just an innocent bit of emailing, in real life we call it gossip. It also chips away at what trust people have in Christians.

My apologies to you if you've recieved a slightly snappy email from me today, but I'd rather we were known for the gospel than for kicking the post office. Personally, I'd quite like to save the post office, and for local churches to be in a position to host local post office services if the government decides to shut them down. Spreading rumours like this doesn't help our case.

Update: I've just had a reply to one of my snappy emails, which says:

I have had two repsonses which may indicate this is a hoax but some of our congregation (St Paul's, Sherborne) have had problems getting them and our church warden actually challenged them at (a local) Post office after they said they were sold out and they sheepishly brought out two large bundles...

well, well, well.......

post office closures - latest

You can now find out when your local post office network is going to be reorganised: go to ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/po/Consultation_period_look_up_final_080807.pdf and find where you live - the date tells you when 6 weeks of public consultation on the closure programme will start. The royal mail website - on which it's quite tricky to track down any information about the closure programme, states here that there will be 12 weeks of consultation with 'stakeholders' prior to the published date.

For Yeovil, the date is February 08, which could mean stakeholder conversations happening from November. Various national churches are talking to the post office about hosting post office services in church premises, especially in remote rural areas - 500 'hosted' post offices are planned as part of the reorganisation, alongside the closure of 2500 other branches.

The government paper responding to public consultation about the closures is here. No change was made to the planned 2500 closures.

A search for 'post office' on the Arthur Rank Centre website throws up a couple of articles about this issue. However the most recent, from their publication Country Way, isn't available online as yet.