Post Office Petition Presented to Parliament by MP

as residents meeting criticises appalling state of postal services

Tony Colman continued his campaigning against the closure of Putney Post Offices by presenting a petition to Parliament on 8 June signed by many local residents objecting to the planned closure of the post office at 2A Montford Place, Princes Way, Southfields.

Tony Colman MP met with Kay Dixon, London Manager of Postwatch to protest against the proposed Post Office Closure on Montford Place/Princes Way, Southfields at the end of May and attended the public meeting on 11 June called by Wandsworth Council to discuss Post Office closures in the borough.

Speaking in Parliament Tony Colman said,
"I present a petition signed by my constituents opposed to the closure of the post office located in a successful retail outlet at 2A Montford place, Princes way, Southfields. The closure is opposed not only by myself and my constituents, but by Wandsworth council, and is being strongly queried by Postwatch."

One of the arguments against closure is that :

"this closure will have a detrimental impact on the local community, especially the elderly, less mobile and disabled and parents with young children; notes the hilly nature of the terrain in which that post office is situated and that there is not another post office within easy walking distance and deplores the farcical so-called consultation process initiated by the Post Office in which the general public's and other stakeholders' views are contemptuously set aside."

100 local residents met at the meeting on the 11th June and criticised the appalling state of postal services in the borough and called for the scrapping of plans to axe
five more local branches.

Senior post office managers who attended the heated public meeting in Tooting on Friday evening were forced to respond to a series of complaints about deteriorating services. There are fears that the current round of closures may not be the last with
more threatened in Battersea.

Deputy council leader Maurice Heaster said there seemed little logic to the closure plans, and the fells that the "the consultation programme is a sham":

"No thought has been given to the impact any one closure will have on a neighbouring branch. That is why we are seeing long queues at so many places. In one case in Putney where a sub post office was on the hit list another trader in the same locality expressed interest in bringing the service into his own store. Yet nothing happened."

The current consultation runs until June 21. It includes plans to close four sub post offices in Tooting and one in Southfields. In the last 15 months seven of the borough's sub post offices have closed under the nationwide 'network reinvention programme'.

To find out more including how to register your objection to closures in your area visit www.wandsworth.gov.uk/postoffices

June 15, 2004