Post Office Closures

Following the DTI consultation at the beginning of 2007, the Post Office (PO) restructuring process is taking place until end of 2008, co-ordinated by Post Office Ltd.  Of the current 14,000 braches in England, 2,500, are due to close across both rural and urban areas; however, with 500 new outreach branches, the net closure will be 2,000.  The new network of POs will be established ‘where they are needed’, based on standardised evidence on ‘area plans’ (constituency groupings).

Each area plan will be open to a six week public consultation held in phases between October 2007 and Autumn 2008. Five area plans covering Yorkshire and The Humber can be seen here.

For more information see the Post Office Ltd website.

April 2008 update

Action by North Yorks County Council
Minutes of meeting March 20th

Decisions: The East Yorkshire with Bassetlaw & North LincolnshireAdditional consultations for this area have now closed and subsequently all closure decisions have been taken. This area includes the Y&H constituencies of: Beverley & Holderness; Brigg & Goole; Cleethorpes; Doncaster Central; Doncaster North; Don Valley; Great Grimsby; Haltemprice & Holden; Hull East; Hull North; Hull West & Hessle and Scunthorpe.

What was set out in the original area plan proposal:

Original number of branches within the area: 381

• Number proposed to be retained as permanent branches = 312 (82%)
  of which 221 are in the Yorkshire and the Humber region

• Number proposed for replacement with outreach services = 24 (6%)
  of which 6 are in the Yorkshire and the Humber region

• Number proposed for closure without replacement = 45 (12%)
  of which 28 are in the Yorkshire and the Humber region

The split between the 336 network retentions (permanent branches plus outreach) is proposed to comprise of 112 in urban towns and cities and 224 in rural areas.

Decisions following the consultation

There have been three phases of decisions:

• The initial area plan decision announced that 42 of the 45 branches proposed for closure would close, with 3 remaining open based on consultation feedback.

  27 of the 42 to close are within the Y&H region,
  
  1 of the 3 to remain open is in the Y&H region; the New Hexthorpe branch Doncaster (whilst the other two are in Louth and Lincoln).

• In respect to outreach services, a supplementary decision booklet was issued. The 24 that were originally proposed for outreach were confirmed,  therefore 6 are in Y&H. The types of outreach methods vary between hosted, mobile and partner services, with hosted services being the most popular.

• A further consultation decision was published early 2008 following additional consultation. As a consequence of the three branches originally ear-marked for closure remaining open, an alternative three braches would need to close to meet 45 closures. All three of the new closures are in Y&H despite only one of the original three being so, these are:

  Beckett Road branch, Doncaster (DN2 4AD)

  Dalsetter Rise branch, Hull (HU8 9JF)

  Wrawby branch, Nr Brigg (DN20 8RR)

It is not clear from the decision papers when any of the closures will take place.

March 2008 update

Post Offices Network Restructuring consultation update:

The restructuring of the Post Office network is now over half-way through the phased national consultations as undertaken by Post Office Ltd.  The series of six week consultations are being conducted by 'area plans' based on grouping of parliamentary constituencies, with Yorkshire and The Humber divided as shown in the attached map.

There have been some changes to previously published consultation dates, including additional consultations in some areas where the main consultation has closed.  Full details are available on the Post Office Ltd consultation website here, whilst the status of Yorkshire and The Humber area plans are summarised below:

Post Office further updates January 2008

The Post Office announces
The Post Office has announced and closed it's consultations on two areas in our region ( East and North Yorkshire).  The RAF is looking for examples of the effects on the communities concerned so that we can report to the various consultations and ongoing representations to Government and Post Office Ltd. 

The type of thing we need to know are:

• Has a shop closed because of loss of the Post Office income ?
• Is the out reach service of any use as hours are often very limited?

The RAF is looking at the future and trying to envisage the situation should the present £150 million subsidy  to Post Office Ltd  not be renewed.  What actual business is now limited to a Post Office Ltd  franchise and what can be done by any business or community group?  More and more Government work seems to being taken away from the exclusive Post Office Ltd franchise and much also put onto the Internet.. This has implications for  the types of business offering villages combined services. We would like to here your views.

Response to BERR Select Committee from NYCC
Read the formal response from North Yorkshire County Council

Use of Churches as hosted Post Offices    
There is a helpful document  “Guidance and Best practice for the provision of a hosted Post Office service in Churches and Chapels" to be found at www.churchcare.co.uk/develop.php?FF

See Rural Services Network – Weekly Digest – 17 December 2007
News supplied by Rural Focus – online news for decision-makers in rural England.
http://www.ruralfocus.co.uk

DTI Post Office Network Consultation - March 2007
The Department of Trade and Industry launched its 12 week consultation on the future of the Post Office network in December 2006. This contained significant reference to Rural Post offices.
Following discussions at the 7th November Y&H RAF meeting there was enough strength of feeling from members to consider preparing a Y&H RAF response. This was taken forward through a more focussed meeting of interested members, February 2007, to explore levels of consensus on the consultation questions. Subsequently a Y&H RAF response was prepared and submitted.

Y&H Post Office Consultation Response
DTI Post Office Network consultation