Possible rural Post Office closures

[jgurney]

Ministers are considering whether to alter subsidies to rural Post Offices. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12 ... er-change/

Should CTC take a position on this? It seems to me that further losses of village Post Offices ( and therefore general stores) would have a detrimental effect upon both touring and local cyclists. Tourists would be more likely to have to deviate from rural itineraries into towns to collect supplies. Local people would be less likely to be able to cycle to their local PO/shop. There would be more car journeys on rural roads to access more distant PO's/shops. Non-car owning households may find village life without the PO/shop more challenging, leading to more rural car ownership as such households either moved away and were replaced with car owning ones or acquired cars.

[Psamathe]

Thinking about my own local Post Office/village shop - it lost the Post Office recently when Post Office was reducing their subsidies and pushing shops to become more "self-sufficient". and loss of Post Office meant loss of shop (now turned into a house.

But when it was a shop it was not great, nothing I wanted. I even stopped off towards the end of a long ride very thirsty and they didn't have any drinkable caned drinks !! People can often get upset about loss of local facilities that they never use. Same with local pub - was making a loss, none of the locals were using it but come the planning application for change of use into "residential" and all hell broke lose because nobody wanted to lose it (even though they never used it).

I think it would be a bit "tenuous" for the CTC to take a stand on subsidising Post Offices.

Ian

[landsurfer]

Surely village post offices are being closed due to lack of use ?
2 local villages have lost their post offices but the shop that they where in expanded into the space.
Another closed, became a cafe, and the post office re-appeared in the local shop.

[landsurfer]

Should CTC take a position on this?

Absolutely not, lets get on with the Cycle Touring.....

[pwa]

Our village shop / post office is kept open by an elderly lady who sees it as a hobby. When she quits I think it will close and I don't think I will miss it much. I just don't feel that I need it. It is handy when we run out of milk, but that is just us being disorganised. It is also handy when we want to post something that has to be weighed, but we can do that in the little town of Llantwit Major that we have to go to several times a week anyway. And with groceries now being delivered to the doorstep even the carless retired people have other options. I think it may be a bit of the past that we will have to let go of.

[landsurfer]

I like Llantwit Major, I used to live there.
Stoney but nice beach, good point break ....

[pwa]

I like Llantwit Major, I used to live there.
Stoney but nice beach, good point break ....

The town is still a good place to live, with lots of shops, post office, library, surgery, dentists, etc. My elderly parents live there and are able to walk to most of the places they need to get to. The beach is certainly rocky, but still a great place to cycle down to. And it still has the weird old fashioned cafe with windows facing inland and its back turned on the wonderful view across the Bristol Channel.

[Paulatic]

It's nothing to do with CTC but any effort is definitely shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. We lost our village PO about 15 yrs ago. The last 5yrs of being open it stopped stocking anything. Not even sweets as no one bought anything there.
Even, a larger place like, Moffat no longer has a dedicated PO. The PO services are within a filling station now. With bus services constantly being cut, until they become useless, to live in the country without a car is nigh impossible.

[Vetus Ossa]

Plymouth is not a village, it’s a city and we recently lost the Post Office in the centre of town.
I don't hold out much hope for rural P.O.'s

[AlaninWales]

Surely village post offices are being closed due to lack of use ?
2 local villages have lost their post offices but the shop that they where in expanded into the space.
Another closed, became a cafe, and the post office re-appeared in the local shop.

Lack of use?

http://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/what-we-do

. Around 18 million customers, including a third of all small businesses, visit us every week

So out of a population of just over 60million, just over a third visit the PO weekly (yes, some will visit more than once a week whilst others more rarely, but that means the more frequent visitors are more reliant on the PO).

Whilst the visit rate will likely be lowest in rural areas, this doesn't mean that people in those areas will not suffer. The PO is often their lifeline and their access point for their pensions. Small businesses which serve these areas will also suffer and the blight increases.

The argument was the same for closing branch lines of rural railways: Modernisation doesn't need distributed businesses running at small margins, it needs large corporations making mega deals. And so the divide between rich and poor, those with access to facilities and those without, widens.

[al_yrpal]

We have a One Stop convenience store (owned by Tesco) in our village, it contains a small Post Office Counter. You cant do absolutely everything there but most things. Its open from 6am until 10pm. In the busy village shop in the West country where my daughter lives they have a similar set up. Seems to work quite well. Perhaps thats the future?

Al

[thirdcrank]

I've just been getting ready to go out and my wife is watching the Harold Bird Show, AKA BBC Look North Regional News. I caught an item saying that of the 40,000 phone boxes which remain, it's planned to cut 15,000 because they are not sufficiently used. I can't find a link to this news even on the BBC www

In spite of the availability of mobile phones and improved signal coverage in remote areas, I'd suggest that this is more important to cyclists than post office closures.

[reohn2]

I've just been getting ready to go out and my wife is watching the Harold Bird Show, AKA BBC Look North Regional News. I caught an item saying that of the 40,000 phone boxes which remain, it's planned to cut 15,000 because they are not sufficiently used. I can't find a link to this news even on the BBC www

In spite of the availability of mobile phones and improved signal coverage in remote areas, I'd suggest that this is more important to cyclists than post office closures.

If only for somewhere to shelter if caught in a heavy downpour

[mjr]

...Harold Bird Show, AKA BBC Look North Regional News. I caught an item saying that of the 40,000 phone boxes which remain, it's planned to cut 15,000 because they are not sufficiently used...

If only for somewhere to shelter if caught in a heavy downpour

I'm pretty sure there are more bus shelters than phone boxes already, including some which no longer have bus service. They're better because you can get the bike in too.

[Psamathe]

I've just been getting ready to go out and my wife is watching the Harold Bird Show, AKA BBC Look North Regional News. I caught an item saying that of the 40,000 phone boxes which remain, it's planned to cut 15,000 because they are not sufficiently used. I can't find a link to this news even on the BBC www

In spite of the availability of mobile phones and improved signal coverage in remote areas, I'd suggest that this is more important to cyclists than post office closures.

From a community perspective, disused phone boxes often get a 2nd life. some round me have been turned into community book swap centres (i.e. full of books and on trust you bring a book and take a book. Others used as somewhere for the defibrillator machine. In fact (and much as I dislike BT), BT have in some cases actually been paying for the defib. machines, installation, etc. Probably loads of other uses but those are just two I've seen locally..

Ian