Library plan to save post offices
CUSTOMERS will be able to get more than just a book of stamps at their local
post office under plans being announced today to turn them into libraries.
The scheme, which will be unveiled by Chris Smith, could help to provide
extra income for hard-pressed village post offices.
They have been hit by a decision to change the way pensions and benefits
are paid, which triggered the Western Daily Press Don’t Stamp Out Our Post
Offices campaign, supported by well over three million people.
The libraries idea was not included in a report on the future of the post
network published by the Government’s Performance and Innovation Unit last
year, and appears to have come from within Mr Smith’s department.
Today he publishes a culture policy paper that will include a section on
libraries, which have been declining for 20 years because of budget cuts.
The idea would be to give rural post offices money to set up libraries in
communities that do not have them.
A source said: “What we are setting out to do is to ensure that library
services are consistent throughout the country.
Just because you live in a rural area does not mean you should have a lousy
library service.”
The proposal caught the Post Office by surprise and the National Federation
of SubPostmasters was also unaware of it.
Provide Both organisations are keen to see details of how the scheme would
work and how much income it could provide for sub-postmasters.
In 1999 libraries employed 5,103 staff and had 98.4 million books, compared
with 7,324 and 108.6 million two decades ago.
Many villages have to rely on mobile libraries which are often poorly
stocked.
Meanwhile Post Offices Minister Alan Johnson said yesterday that guidelines
had been issued to all Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide staff in affected
areas about delivering letters and packages during the foot-and-mouth
outbreak.
He said special arrangements had been agreed with customers in restriction
zones and staff were co-operating fully with all sanitary arrangements put
in place by landowners outside quarantined areas.
And the Post Office admitted yesterday that it had failed to reach its
reliability target for first class mail because of disruption on the
railways and a series of wildcat strikes.
A third of mail trains are running at least half an hour late every night,
described as a “catastrophic” delay, because of the rail repair programme
sparked by the Hatfield crash five months ago.
And around 30,000 days have been lost since September because of strikes,
more than in the whole of the 1999/2000 financial year.
This meant first-class mail reliability for the current financial year will
fall to around 89 per cent, three per cent below the target and the lowest
since 1996/1997 when there were a series of national strikes.
EDITION: WP Late City
PAGE: 2
SECTION: News
WESTERN DAILY PRESS, 20th March 2001
