GREEN PARTY SURVEY REVEALS VALUE OF LOCAL POST OFFICES

Closures "must cease immediately"  Eastern Region Green Party has conducted a survey over recent months of local post offices in the region.  Sub Postmasters and Postmistresses were contacted about the service they currently provide, what they could provide in the future and how important they considered Post Offices are to the local community (1).  98% felt it was important that their particular Post Office remained open, citing 11 different reasons as to why they felt this way. Many replied that they could provide a public and social service and that they were the eyes and ears of the community. They helped to combat fraud and would know if someone was having health or domestic difficulties and therefore could alert neighbours.

81% agreed strongly that the local sub Post Office provide a hub for the local community and 91% disagreed that the Main Post Offices are more convenient. 71% disagreed that Main Post Offices were more efficient at providing services than a sub Post Office. 69% disagreed that most people can get to a main Post Office these days.  Many added that the Post Office helped to support the vunerable in their community, e.g., the elderly, as there were no other amenities available to them compounded by poor local transport.   Many replies pointed out that Post Offices are a good source of networking which can encourage use of local trades and supply customers with locally produced provisions. 63% felt it was vital to their local community to encourage people to shop locally with 85% agreeing that local sub Post Offices were important because they avoided the need for people to use their cars.

55% of sub Post Offices surveyed said that services such as bill payments were very important and wanted to offer services which have been taken away, for example, 67% wanted to be able to offer TV licence renewals (previously a service they offered which has been taken away from them). Whilst is was recognised that accessing services via the internet and telephone was available, 92% agreed strongly that for those without access to computers, face-to-face help that the Post Office can provide should be available.   62% disagreed that the internet was better at providing most of the services you can get from the local sub Post Office.  Worryingly, the results revealed that 48% of the sub Post Offices surveyed are already between 3 - 10 miles away from each other.

Cllr. Rupert Read, Lead Green Party MEP candidate for Eastern England, said:   "Our survey results reinforce the strong feeling in local communities that Post Offices are a vital part of the social fabric of our society. Despite this, numbers are reducing year on year thanks in part to the deliberate actions of Government taking away services from them.  There clearly needs to be a stable economic environment for Post Offices to operate in, but the Government is failing to take full account of the hidden financial and social benefits of a thriving Post Office network in terms of a host of gains including social cohesion, health, combating fraud and crime and building sustainable communities.  The Green Party is fully committed to protecting our Post Office network and will continue to oppose further cuts. Closures must cease immediately.   Furthermore, we believe that Post Offices should be able to provide more services than they do at present. Our survey indicates that Sub-Postmasters and Sub-Postmistresses would like to be able to offer TV licensing and banking facilities - to help them become once again a true hub of the community. The Green Party backs this aspiration - we would invest in the Post Office network, not run it down."