Post office closures: 'It is unlikely the city has seen the last closures'

Published on Wednesday 22 October 2008 09:55

ALTHOUGH there is clear outrage in parts of the city over plans by the Post Office to close 11 branches, the decision should come as no great surprise.

Despite examining more than 3500 submissions and holding more than 100 public meetings during a six-week consultation process it would have been a great surprise had the Post Office deviated much from its original closure plan. Only those served by the Calder Crossway and Elm Row branches have been able to put forward compelling arguments which presumably have seen them granted a reprieve. Even the council's plea to save three branches – Cramond, Magdalene Drive and Calder Crossway – resulted in only the latter being saved from the chop. But in most cases the closures were almost inevitable.

Against a background of diminishing subsidy from the Government most outlets have become uneconomic businesses and as the Post Office seeks to slim down and modernise part of its plans involve removing almost 2500 branches from the UK network. But this is not entirely down to a recent change in strategy.

The seeds of the demise of the Post Office branch have been slowly sown over the last few decades. Once hubs of the local community the demand for services has diminished. Once most households relied on them to collect benefits and pensions, pay the TV licence, tax the car, collect saving stamps and obtain government forms from everything from driving licences to passports.

This is no longer the case. Most of these once unique functions can now be performed on the internet or sourced elsewhere. Government business used to account for 60 per cent of all transactions but by the end of the next decade this is forecast to fall below ten per cent. As if to demonstrate the fall in demand four million fewer customers will visit a post office this year than did in 2006.

Against this background 20 branches in Edinburgh have already been closed and the loss of a further 20 throughout the city and the rest of the Lothians is a natural progression reflecting the declining need for post office branches.

The decisions to close most will have been taken on both economic and geographic grounds and the only customers likely to be seriously disadvantaged by such a move are the elderly, many of whom still rely on the service and may now have to travel further afield.

But bearing in mind the competitive position Royal Mail and the Post Office finds itself in, and the predicted continual decline in the need for what once were its core services, it is unlikely that the city, or the country, will have seen the last closures. More will surely follow.