Politicians have slammed the government for failing to offer adequate support for rural post offices.
At a debate on rural postal services on 25 October, MPs pressured postal affairs minister Kevin Hollinrake on plans to end DVLA services in post offices, the slow rollout of Post Office (PO) banking hubs, poor pay from banks to branches for banking services and Royal Mail’s (RM) plans to cut delivery office payments to some branches.
Liberal Democrat MP Jamie Stone said two branches in his Caithness constituency were “worried about their viability” after RM said it would stop using the branches as delivery offices. Each gets £7,500 per year for allowing RM to use the space.
Paul Barrett’s West End Stores & Melvich Post Office is one of the branches affected. He said: “There are other branches going through this as well.”
RM said it was “unable” to say how many branches are to lose these partnerships, but added: “We don’t have a policy of moving away from PO-hosted delivery offices towards dedicated RM spaces. Each is considered individually.”
The PO told Better Retailing the fees can be “a significant sum” for postmasters, adding a Mailwork Withdrawal Payment, equal to one year of fees, is made to those affected. It said it works with retailers to find new uses for the space and they can apply for “exceptional funding” in case of hardship.
Hollinrake said: “We need to find ways to make the network sustainable. We do not have a bottomless pit of money.”
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