Two more axed post office branches back from the dead

A town hall campaign to help communities hit by the Post Office closures is to result in two more axed branches reopening their doors.

A town hall campaign to help communities hit by the Post Office closures is to result in two more axed branches reopening their doors.

A branch in the town of Braintree, Essex, and another in the neighbouring village of White Notley are set to open next month following negotiations with Post Office bosses.

The revivals follow the reopening of culled branches in Buckhurst Hill, Little Hallingbury and Henham late last year after receiving grants from Essex County Council.

The five branches were among the 2,500 shut down nationally by the Post Office as part of its 18-month Network Change Programme completed at the end of last year.

Over the next three years, Essex County Council aims to open a further ten branches in addition to the five that have already been reopened using £1.5million of council taxpayers’ cash earmarked for community projects.
The council hopes it will also be able to use these reopened post offices as outlets for the ‘Bank of Essex’.

The bank will be run like a credit union and will receive £50 million of council backing.

Council chiefs hope the funding will be matched by the EU-backed European Investment Bank on the grounds that it will help local businesses. MPs from the Business and Enterprise Select Committee met at Essex Council headquarters in Chelmsford on Thursday to discuss the reopening project.

The Tory peer believes that the MPs who attended the meeting were impressed by the work being done by his council.

Committee chairman Peter Luff, Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire, says: “We must recognise the role post offices play in communities, particularly in rural and deprived urban areas – especially for the elderly and disabled.”

“The public response that our committee has had to post office closures demonstrates that many people believe cost-effectiveness should be secondary to the social functions that a post office supplies.”

In the past decade the number of post offices across the country has been slashed from 19,500 to just 14,300.