SAVE OUR POST OFFICES: What would Tim do?
AS MPs for Shoreham and Worthing launch their campaign to save post offices threatened with closure, one reader asks, what will they do instead?
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Ricky Daniel writes:
Tim Loughton, is predictably giving a hug to the next 'big' issue, the proposed closure of seven of our constituency's sub-post offices.
But where are his alternative solutions to the disastrous financial state of the post office network?
Under the plan's proposals, on top of the more than 2 billions of public money already sunk into keeping the post office network afloat since 1999, substantial further funding will be made available to modernise and secure the future of the network.
What would he do differently?
MP's concerned will have been consulted, along with local and county councils, in the preparation of the network change proposals.
Tim Loughton will have had advance notice of the area plan proposal for Sussex.
As an MP he will have had full knowledge of the debates in Parliament and the views of the House of Commons trade and industry committee.
He will know that the post office network was losing 4 million per week in the 2006-7 financial year, and that the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters has recognised that the current size of the network of over 14,000 offices is unsustainable.
The research, the facts and figures are all easily available.
He will be aware that the area proposals will have been developed with the participation of sub-postmasters and Postwatch.
Following the criteria established by the Government, he will know that of the 9.4 per cent of customers using those branches that might close, 9% will be within one mile of an alternative (measured by road).
This means 90.6% of post office customers will see no change at all.
So let's have fewer of Mr Loughton's publicity stunts and, for once, some believable, imaginative, alternative proposals.
What will he suggest in place of this major initiative to safeguard the future of the largest retail network in the country, central to the life of local communities, but fast falling behind in a rapidly changing world, hugely loss-making and getting worse, reliant on massive public subsidy.
What does "David Cameron's Conservative Party" intend to do instead?
But that doesn't matter as much as Tim Loughton's alternative proposals for our constituency.
We wait with interest, but without holding our breath.
Ricky Daniel
Lower Beach Road
Shoreham-by-Sea
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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