Walkley Post Office earmarked for closure!

[Ravenger 10]

I was shocked to see a notice in the Walkley Post Office window this morning, stating that the PO intends to close it for cost cutting reasons. There's a consultation period but it ends on the 28th May.

 

If the Walkley PO closes it'll be another blow to Walkley high street. With no local Post Office or bank business will go to crookes or Hillsborough, and the high street will decline even more.

 

The notice shows the nearest three alternatives, two of which were Springvale Road and Hillsborough, and states their distances, bus routes, and how difficult a walk it is to get there.

 

All three alternatives require walking up/down steep inclines to reach them, so Pensioners and disabled people would find it difficult to walk. Two have no direct bus service or a very limited bus service, and of course it costs money to use a bus too.

 

I'm planning to write a letter to oppose the closure. I haven't got the address yet, but I'll note it down later and post it on here if anyone from Walkley is interested in protesting against the decision.

[HotPhil 10]

Can't see this having a lot of impact on people in my position - I'm amazed any business that closes for Saturday afternoons (i.e. when working people are able to get to it) has survived for so long.....

[max 13]

There is a petition I've organised which if you want to sign them PM me and we'll sort something out. There should be an article in The Star soon showing people signing the petition.

 

You may be interested to know that Councillor Veronica Hardstaff has written to the PO registering her protest and our MP, Helen Jackson, is going to write to the minister responsible for the PO as well as to the PO themselves.

 

I spoke to the person responsible at the PO and he said the closures were based on geographic distance and suggested Stannington was only .6 mile away. Laugh.

[Tony 10]

Isn't there a PO at Crookesmoor traffic lights?

 

I do tend to agree that the PO doesn't really function when lots of ordinary people want them, but there do provide a useful function for lots of people.

 

It's a tough call, but should the PO as a private company be in the business of subsidising aspects of government schemes such as pension and benefits? In a few years time everyone will be used to cashless transactions, so its going to be less of an issue if its one at all.

 

Can I ask... apart from benefit collection etc, what do people use their post office for that they can't get in other places?

[mollie 10]

hello tony, you ask what people need post offices for? they are not only there to pay out benefits ect, where do you go when you want to post a parcel, or send a letter overseas which has to be weighed, or what about the various official forms you can pick up there? not to mention banking and the other sevices they now offer, all the offices earmarked for closer will be missed by the local community

[Tony 10]

You can get all those (more or less easily) in plenty of other places, I hardly ever use the Post Office simply because it's closed when I need it, so I've found other ways of getting services like parcels, leaflets and road tax.

 

I was wondering what makes Post Offices so unique to cause such a fuss.

[Andy 10]

The only two things I've needed a Post Office for in the last few years have been renewing car tax and applying for a passport. Neither of these services are offered by my local Post Office so I had to go into town anyway.

[HotPhil 10]

If my local PO hadn't been closed down and had the common sense to open at hours I could get to it, I'd probably still use if for paying bills (in this day of Direct Debits/net payments etc I still like to be able to file a receipt away), buying electricity/gas (my house had pre-pay meters when I moved in and haven't got round to changing them yet) and posting more parcels etc to family in Australia. I cite last December as an example; Having dutifully wrapped up a Christmas parcel to be sent to Australia one Saturday lunchtime I went to the PO to post it. I was amazed to find that in the busiest month of the year, not one of the 6 PO's I drove to was open on a Saturday afternoon. The next visit to a "main" PO (having taken time off work on the Monday) was an equal joke - queued for 35 minutes to be told I couldn't post the parcel as they "had run out of the customs stickers you need to put on it".

 

As Andy says, the only real PO functions that aren't available elsewhere are only available in "larger" ones anyway.

 

The PO may be losing £1m a day or so, but they'd be losing ever so slightly less if they brought themselves into this century and opened at times that meant I was able to get to one and give them money.

 

Sorry, for rant - I just can't stand the way in which many British companies are SO bad at allowing me to give them money. The PO is champion at this.

[tango2 10]

If you visit their web sites almost everything you can do in a postoffice can be done online.

 

http://www.royalmail.com

http://www.parcelforce.com

http://www.postoffice.co.uk

 

and yes you can post a parcel via the internet,as you can have it collected from what ever address you choose.

 

Im afraid its the future of business as we know it.

[Squiggs 11]

Originally posted by tango2

If you visit their web sites almost everything you can do in a postoffice can be done online.

 

http://www.royalmail.com

http://www.parcelforce.com

http://www.postoffice.co.uk

 

and yes you can post a parcel via the internet,as you can have it collected from what ever address you choose.

 

Im afraid its the future of business as we know it.

 

Well it's no good for me. I sell stuff on eBay, only a few bits but enough to keep a small spare-time business ticking over. I work in Hilllsborough, the PO at the co-op is too busy and too awkward to carry a bag full of small parcels too in my lunch break. Rivelin PO was ideal. That's gone. I have to drive now all the way to the PO at the garage on Penistone Rd and back - try doing that in a lunch break 3-4 days a week. It gets too much especially when there's a queue and you end up being late back from lunch on a regular basis - I've basically had to stop even though my business was looking like gradually being able to allow me to jack in my job and go self-employed. But not at the stage where I could afford reguilar collections, nor would it have suited my employer to run my "despatch" from work.

 

So thank you Post Office for forcing me to stay in the world of slaving away to make someone else rich, instead of suporting and working for myself =(

[fuzzy 10]

Originally posted by Tony

Isn't there a PO at Crookesmoor traffic lights?

 

 

Can I ask... apart from benefit collection etc, what do people use their post office for that they can't get in other places?

 

No i don't believe there is one at Crookesmoor anyway.

 

Benefit collection they don't even want you to do that anymore. They want to pay my family allowance into my bank account, i had to tell them i didn''t want that as when i go to collect it i do other things at the same time (pay bills, post stuff, buy cards and stamps, have to see the slimey bloke that runs it), but apparently it is going to happen that i have to soon, but for now i have told them no way do i want it like that. So is there any wonder they are closing when the government (i assume) are trying to stop peolpe having to go in anymore and then they campaign to keep them open

Sometimes the only time an old person goes out of the house, or sees anyone else and they wanna stop that too.

[Mo 10]

Originally posted by max

You may be interested to know that Councillor Veronica Hardstaff has written to the PO registering her protest and our MP, Helen Jackson, is going to write to the minister responsible for the PO as well as to the PO themselves.

 

.

 

Petition my ar**. Thats rich. The LABOUR government has done all in it's power to get people to switch the way they have their pensions/benefits paid ie into a bank account rather than having it paid at the post office.

 

I opted to have my family allowance collected as normal from the post office. This was not for my benefit as it would have been much more convenient for me to have had it paid into my bank account but for the benefit of the community as a whole in order to save a local amenity.

 

I have been badgered several times by civil servants almost begging me to change my mind.

 

This has been an orchestrated campaign by the government in order for them to say that post offices are not doing enough business.