Witney's main post office to be closed

9:30am Saturday 9th February 2013 in News

WITNEY’S main post office is to close.

The company yesterday announced plans to axe 70 of its main high street premises.

It hopes to reopen the branch as a franchise inside another shop in the town centre.

The Market Square branch in Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency is the only Post Office earmarked for closure in Oxfordshire.

The Post Office nationally is currently operating at a £40m annual loss, and said it needed to close the 70 directly-managed Crown post offices to stem the losses.

A Post Office spokesman said it would look to retailers in Witney to offer a new home for its counter services.

It said no jobs were immediately at risk and pledged that if no franchise partner could be found, it would try to keep the town centre branch open.

The only other post office in Witney is in Burwell Drive, off Curbridge Road, but it does not offer the comprehensive range of services such as passport checking or driver and vehicle licensing services found at the town centre branch.

Witney town councillor Alan Beames said: “I'm surprised, it's always very busy. There are always long queues in there whenever you go inside. They put on so many vital services there. It's the only place around here you can get your passport forms.

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“We will have to ensure Witney doesn’t lose this altogether.”

Comments(13)

nickwilcock says...
12:35pm Sat 9 Feb 13

How on earth can an organisation with a nigh-on monopoly in a thriving market town not run its business properly?

When I first came to Witney, there was a sub-post office in Newland, now closed. Then the Cogges Neighbourhood Centre lost its post office when Tesco took over the convenience store.

So where are these other 8 'post offices' in Witney? I don't know of any....

The post office made sending letters and cards far more complicated when it introduces the size/weight/destinat
ion criteria for post - so that nowadays if I need to send a letter or card to Europe, I have to queue up and get the staff to advise me.

It would be utter madness to allow the main post office to close - I hope others will join me in expressing our opinions to our MP!

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Robert Barton says...
1:17pm Sat 9 Feb 13

The post office in Witney is essential for us all. Nick is right it would be utter madness for the post office to close this branch down. If we trust leading retailers to take them over we run the risk they won't honour the commitment. This is a resource we need to keep hold of and fight for.

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nickwilcock says...
1:31pm Sat 9 Feb 13

Having just queried this press release, I am told that "It is only a proposal - nothing has been decided yet"....

Riiiggggggghhhhht - who believes that?

Incidentally, the '8 other post offices' the post office customer query person could find were in Burwell Farm, Bicester, North Leigh, Stanton Harcourt, Minster Lovell....when she said 'Bye-cester', meaning Bicester, I told her that it might as well be in Newcastle for all the good that would do.

A Crown Post Office in such a prime location is essential in a town with a thriving town centre, which has an increasing population, both numerically and demographically.

You can contact the Post Office at "Post Office Customer Care, Freepost, PO Box 740, Barnsley S730ZJ". If you are a Witney constituent, you can also send a message to David Cameron via: http://www.theyworkf
oryou.com/mp/david_c
ameron/witney .

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Myron Blatz says...
3:40pm Sat 9 Feb 13

Maybe the Government should take over the running of Post Office - or does it already run it? I think the answer to Post Office financial problems is that a public service cannot be expected to run like a commercial business - and looking at the way so many so-called 'commercial businesses' go bankrupt, or cost-cut to make fat profits, then perhaps some things should never be privatised - look at what has happened to electricity, gas, water, and anything else which has become commercial enterprises ... for the financial gain of the few!

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William Crossley says...
4:21pm Sat 9 Feb 13

Editor's note. Apologies for the previous reference to there being eight post offices in Witney. There are eight in the Witney postal area, which includes nearby villages, but only one other post office in Witney, at Burwell Drive.

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gillywilks says...
4:23pm Sat 9 Feb 13

Why is up for closure when you have to queue every time you need stamps, passports etc??It is always busy, so why oh why is it up for closure? and the other thing where is there 8 Post Offices in Witney, is this April Fools Day!!!!

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H.J.Harris says...
4:57pm Sat 9 Feb 13

How many retail businesses will have the space to accommodate the number of people queuing to use Post Office services ?
Is it possible that this is an exercise to see how much opposition there is to this madness ?
If that is the case let's give them some protest and write to our MP and the management as suggested by Nick and anyone else we can think of.

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amber leaf says...
8:05pm Sat 9 Feb 13

it would make a good costa coffee or starbucks tho prime spot ££££££££....
..

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bodchris says...
8:18pm Sat 9 Feb 13

Closed???? With the 15 min queues you'd think they'd need to open a second one!!!

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son says...
10:03pm Sat 9 Feb 13

Always massive queues, potentially a big loss for such a busy town. Would be very disruptive to a big shop that would need to accommodate the queues that often stretch outside....

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Man on the Green says...
10:09am Sun 10 Feb 13

It would be totally bonkers (to use an inhabitually emotive expression) to close the main Post Office in Witney, but worse it makes no commercial sense. No-one's going to give permission to build a block of flats on this site (are they?!) as happened with the main Post Office in Abingdon, for example. This did re-open (as a franchise I believe) in the nearby Co-op, but this has proved to be a dreadful squeeze at busy times, even though the overall volume of customers has dropped (which means a significant loss of footfall in an already struggling town centre). Witney is holding up pretty well, it seems to me, but probably can't afford any major blows of this kind. (BTW, re Costa, I heard that another Costa was already going to be opening in the new development on Welch Way, beside the town centre District Council shop).

As I understand it, there has to be statutory consultation over such proposals, and the relevant local authority (in this case, I believe the WODC, as planning authority), would have to agree to any change of use (it would be most helpful if any of the present / former Council members out there could correct / confirm this). We will of course be looking to our elected members to defend this essential service, and their support for keeping the main Post Office will be a key determinant for voters I'm sure.

If this proposal is pushed forward, we will need to lobby massively to get the Post Office to back down.

P.S. I am almost afraid to mention that there is a wonderfully helpful and efficient sub post office in North Leigh, which never has any queues. I use it for many of my PO needs as possible. Please don't ALL go there!

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Ruth Smith says...
10:43pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Amber Leaf's hunch about coffee shops and Robert's concern for fulfilled obligations of retailers are both borne out by the case of Summertown. It wasn't a main PO like ours, but it had been moved into a newsagent as a franchise and was lost when that became a coffee shop. I believe they are currently without a PO. http://www.oxfordmai
l.co.uk/news/9462974
.Post_Office_urged_t
o_think_again_over_S
ummertown_branch/
Now, a ticket system whereby one gets to drink coffee (would have to be a free or cheap option too) while one waits could be appealing. The next worst queue in Witney after the PO is Caffe Nero, after all.

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Shaun31 says...
4:23pm Wed 13 Feb 13

I lived in Ryde on the Isle of Wight in 1991 which funnily enough was when the last recession was sweeping the UK and people were making cut backs and i worked for the company that had the Post office put inside their store when the main post office was closed - there was absolute uproar at the time but the post office still went ahead with the plans - the end result was chaos - long queues, post office customers blocking aisles where the shop customers wanted to be,theft in the store was up due to the amount of people wandering around as they blocked the security cameras view and all this was in a town with less population than Witney so you can imagine the problems this is going to cause - the post office is essential for any community and should be preserved for future generations. Rant over

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