After the post office goes

As with pubs, much of our modern way of life - even for those of us who like staying at home and watching daytime telly, occasionally ordering cheap supermarket beer over the Internet - seems to militate against local post offices - demise of the paper benefit or pension cheque, rise of the email, loss of the post office monopoly for selling stamps, etc.

But what effect does the closure of a post office have on shops and businesses around it? According to a report from think tank New Economics Foundation, called The Last Post, the answer is: very great. It reckons that a typical urban post office generates about £580,000 a year for the economy within a half-mile radius.

Shopkeepers in North Parade, Oxford, would certainly agree. They believe that trade has suffered since the post office in North Parade closed in June.

The owner of the Town Garden shop, Steve Jebbett, said: "The bank closed some time ago, so the loss of the post office is yet another reason for people not to come here."

He added: "In the last few years we have lost four post offices nearby: one in South Parade, one at Bunters in Hayfield Road, one on Banbury Road where Costa Coffee has now come, and one here in North Parade."

Despite the turnaround at Royal Mail, which last year moved into profit after losing £1m a day for several years, remaining local post offices (down from 20,000 nationally to 14,500) are still costing the Government £150m a year in subsidies.

General sectretary of the Federation of Sub Postmasters, Colin Baker, said: "We want to work for a living and we don't want handouts, but we believe that the network should be supported."

So should post offices be viewed as businesses or social services, or a bit of both? Mr Jebbett said: "Certainly, our post office was more than a post office: it was Gimbles. Children and their parents went there to buy all sorts of things, including sweets. It was a north Oxford institution."

The New Economics Foundation, basing its findings on its survey in Manchester, reckons half of sub-postmasters keep an eye out for the welfare of regular customers in poorer areas.

Manos Vernicos, who ran the post office at his delicatessen, Bunters, in Hayfield Road for eight years from 1994, said: "I wasn't really given a proper choice when I lost the post office. I was simply told that there were going to be cutbacks and that I would do well to give up then, or possibly miss out on what was really a sort of redundancy payment.

"But what makes my blood boil is that four years on, people still come into the shop and stand there like statues asking where the post office has gone. It was the people who used the post office least who were loudest in shouting for it to remain open. If they didn't use it, of course they lost it."

He added: "Looking back, losing the post office was the best thing that happened. Suddenly I was free. With the post office, there were ever more restrictions about what I could and could not do.

"I would advise anyone considering becoming a sub-postmaster: don't, unless you've got at least three counters. It's just not worth it otherwise."

Which begs the above question: was he a business or a service? "I was really told not to help people much. For instance, I was not supposed to put salt on the pavement outside in freezing weather. Obviously it was only human to wonder why an 89-year-old pensioner hadn't turned up for her pension, but I was discouraged from making inquiries.

"There was a sort of A-Z manual and you were supposed to run the office like a machine. It was okay to start with, and then it got ridiculous. And there was a sort of Big Boy attitude: now I understand that Tesco is being allowed to sell cut-price stamps."

Perhaps the single greatest loss to post offices in recent years has been the Government's encouraging recipients of pensions and benefits to have their money paid directly into bank accounts rather than over a post office counter, making running a local post office less tempting to retailers. The Government's alternative scheme to enable pensioners and others to continue receiving their money over the counter, the Post Office card account, is due to be axed in 2010.

The Citizens Advice Bureau fears that people on benefits might find it hard to open a bank account, as well as those in debt, or undischarged bankrupts.

The CAB said: "We have serious concerns about the lack of clarity on the future of the Post Office card account (POCA) when the current contract runs out in 2010, and are frustrated about the lack of clear information given by the Department of Work and Pensions about its plans for POCA."

It added that it was "imperative" that the process of opening a basic bank account was made easier, in particular for those in debt or for bankrupts.

One man in the area who has picked up business as a result of others closing is Shahzada Ahmed, sub-postmaster at the surviving office in Walton Street. He reckons the problem stems from the Government's cost-cutting measures.

He said: "The crux of the matter is that the Government is trying to save money. But I tell my customers it is they who will suffer as offices close. I see elderly people now who come from Hayfield Road or from North Parade, who have had longer to walk than before, and I am sorry for them.

"If the Post Office card account is phased out in 2010, I shall really have to reconsider my position. I don't know what will come instead, but there is still time to sort it out."

In the meantime, Leonora Pitt, owner of the Verandah Gallery in North Parade, added her voice to the clamour about loss of footfall. "Parents visiting children from the Dragon in particular just don't come down the Parade as much as they used to. There was someone interested in taking over the post office, but the charges were just too great."