PO closure talks branded a sham

The Government is today accused of bulldozing through proposals to close Rochdale’s post offices and running roughshod over residents' concerns.

Chairman of the Commons powerful public accounts committee Edward Leigh said the so-called consultation was a complete “sham” and a “feeble” attempt to communicate with people.

The damning indictment came in response to a report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office. It criticised the handling of closures which in turn caused resentment among local customers. Mr Leigh said: “Given the crucial importance to many in the community of a local post office, I am amazed at the feeble attempts to communicate with people.

“The consultation period lasted only a few weeks and research showed that just 18% of people knew they were being consulted. I regard the consultation as little more than a sham; the department ran roughshod over local residents’ concerns and bulldozed the proposals through.”

The Post Office announced that six branches across Rochdale would close as part of a slimming down of 2,500 branches across the country.

The Government also announced there would be 500 outreach services opened to ensure people in rural areas did not suffer.

As of March, only 87% of outreach services were up and running and 2,383 post offices had been closed.

Mr Leigh said despite the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) being efficient in driving forward the closure programme it had been less successful in protecting customers as Government promised.

“What of the promises to protect customers? The Outreach services are late, and the refurbishments to help the remaining post offices cope with increased demand have not been carried out in almost four out of 10 cases,” he said.

The closure programme is part of a bigger initiative to change the post office service and aims to save £298 million before 2011, then an annual saving of £293 million. Mr Leigh fears annual savings will only reach £45 million — 15% of the estimated cutback.

He concluded: “We still do not know, moreover, what the real cost to rural and urban communities will be of destroying a traditional social service.”