£70,000 payoff to close Post Offices

POST OFFICES are to be offered up to Pounds 70,000 to close in an effort to streamline the struggling network.

The Government is seeking European approval to offer sub-postmasters in towns and cities lucrative compensation packages in exchange for giving up their right to offer post office services.

Senior figures believe that towns and cities have too many post offices to make all 9,000 viable. Many are driving each other out of business because they are too close.

The move comes as the Government prepares to deliver a crushing blow to the network next year by switching benefits payments from cash payouts at post offices to credit transfers into claimants’ bank accounts. Benefits work accounts for 40 per cent of the business of many small post office branches.

Many sub-post offices are barely profitable, making it hard for owners to make a living or sell them as a going concern. More than 540 closed last year because they went out of business or their sub-postmasters retired and were unable to sell the business.

The post office network has some 17,500 branches, including the more protected rural outlets.