UK sub post offices `facing extinction’

Britain’s network of sub post offices is in “serious danger of extinction”, the Government was warned today.

The National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP) said that urgent Government action was now needed to prevent the network sinking into terminal decline.

The federation today set out its proposals to revitalise the system in a manifesto, launched at Westminster with the backing of the all-party post offices group of MPs.

It called for a one-off cash injection of £150 million for the urban network to produce “bigger, better and brighter” post offices, while drawing up a programme by 2008 to develop the “optimum, viable rural network”.

It said the current level of Government support for was doing no more than “prop up” an “ailing” rural network and that start-up cash was need for refurbishment and the ongoing provision of social and economic services.

The NFSP also wants to the Government to pay for the establishment of a £12 million business advice service for postmasters and to develop postmasters as “government general practitioners”, providing public advice on a range of government issues and transactions.

The NFSP general secretary Colin Baker said that sub post offices had lost 40% of their revenue as a result of the switch to paying state pensions and benefits directly into bank accounts.

He said that the vital role played by sub post offices as the focal point of many communities was now in jeopardy.

“We are seriously concerned that if left to stagnate, the post office network will be unable to carry out this role in future,” he said.