Scottish MP warns PO closures will wreck communities

A Warning was issued yesterday that the future of fragile rural communities could be at risk if the Government fails to pledge greater commitment to safeguarding sub-post offices.

Allan Reid, Lib Dem MP for Argyll and Bute, is calling for a long-term promise of support for rural post offices.

"We have already seen the Clydesdale Bank closing branches and, if the sub-post offices close as well, it's going to kill a lot of villages, because usually the post office is combined with the local shop, so that will go as well. At the moment there is a guarantee against unavoidable closures of rural post offices, but that stops next year.

"The Government has a package in place – a nationwide subsidy – to support local post offices, but that runs out in 2008 and I know that the future of local post offices, without a guarantee for their long-term future, is very bleak."

As well as committing to a long-term subsidy of rural post offices, the Government needs to allow small branches to deal with more transactions, such as vehicle taxation, he said.

Sandy Brunton, who runs Fionnphort Post Office on Mull, said: "This post office is in an isolated place but it is absolutely crucial to the community. With the closing of the local mobile Clydesdale Bank, the post office is even more essential."

Rosie Stevenson, of Connel Post Office, near Oban, said she made repeated requests to be allowed to deal with car taxation applications without success. And she claimed that, without more support, many sub-post offices would be at risk.

There is a concern in the Highlands that, as competition increases, fewer services will be carried out by local post offices and more of them will close.

One postal service in the Highlands has already been chopped – deliveries to a handful of properties on the Ardmore peninsula, near Kinlochbervie in Sutherland.

Royal Mail ended the service because of the length of time it took a postman to reach the settlement, and for health and safety reasons.

Now Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP John Thurso fears this may simply be the forerunner of a reduction in services to other rural areas.

The Lib Dem MP pointed out that postal service was vital to residents, and called for it to be reinstated. He said he feared the situation in Ardmore may be the start of a move to make Royal Mail more competitive by cutting the less cost-effective deliveries. "I think there are probably many other delivery routes in my constituency which could be under threat," he said.

Raising the matter during an adjournment debate at Westminster, he questioned the validity of the arguments and suggested a compromise whereby mail for all the properties could be dropped off at a single community mailbox closer to the road.

He told Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Barry Gardiner that the service had been withdrawn in March of this year as a result of "the 15-minute rule" and on health and safety grounds after a temporary postman slipped on the path to Ardmore.

He said the 15-minute rule meant Royal Mail could apply for an exemption from the "universal service" obligation if it took more than 15 minutes to reach a property, but stressed that it only applied to single properties and was therefore not relevant to the group of properties at Ardmore.

Councillors are to ask the European Commission to safeguard postal services in rural areas, as part of a consultation on the creation of a single market for postal services.

The Commission is seeking information on the changing needs of consumers and businesses, the impact of reforms and how the universal postal service can be guaranteed as markets become competitive.

The EC Postal Directive has set a target date of 2009 for all EU members to open up their markets to full competition. The concern in the Highlands is that services to remote areas could decline in frequency and times, and that the cost of postal services could rise.