Is your London post office about to close?

[bohemiancoast]

20% of them are, including mine -- and perhaps yours, too? The consultation runs until Easter. Different areas have different times, and you can get all the consultation documents here:

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?catId=57600693&mediaId=57600697

I need to find a way of commenting that basically says 'well, obviously, I don't *need* a branch post office when there's a crown post office just round the corner, but given that the crown post office is utterly appalling in so many ways (eg the queue is always out the door; wonder if that will improve when all the local branch offices close?)...'.

But the single biggest thing I need is a tiny change; branch offices nearly always leave a sack lying around that you can shove your parcels into. Crown offices don't; you have to queue to hand in pre-stamped parcels. I now buy my postage online, so my only involvement with the post office is to hand these parcels in. If they had a parcel drop, I'd not need to stand in line, and although my workflow would be slightly different using the main office, it would only be slightly less convenient.

For Walthamstow Village, losing its post office will be a major disaster; a shopping area with a post office feels like a community in a way that one without a post office doesn't. But I think the shop owner has already resigned himself to losing the post office; they've started remodelling the shop.

Comments

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

From our experiences down here, where the consultation was done some time ago, the Post Office see it purely as a cosmetic exercise. The thing had barely closed before Smiths was ripping out the back of its shop, and starting to build the new post office counter. And there was CONSIDERABLE opposition to the closure of the main post office in Folkestone. Which is not to say that one shouldn't protest, etc., but it seems to me that the PO has mostly made up its mind already and is not willingly going to back down.

In many instances the local shopkeepers were perfectly willing to keep the post offices going but the PO said no. It's proving an immense inconvenience to people in the satellite villages around Hythe, for example, who can't walk that extra mile, or who are reliant on scant bus services.

[reddragdiva]

The one in the village will be a sad loss, but I commend to you the one over on Wood Street - it's a proper post office branch but not an appalling sh*thole like the main one in the high street. Assuming that's not for the chop too.

We had a win!

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

Liverpool university post office was slated for closure but is now staying open. It's the only one that I know of that has been reprieved but it was a daft idea in the first place. There's always a queue although I imagine it lacks profitability.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Mine closed down a few years ago. I dont bother going to the main one in Leytonstone because the queues are ridiculous.