UK Royal Mail to close 270 post offices in half our high streets
ROYAL MAIL is preparing to close or sell up to half its high street post offices as part of a sweeping restructuring, The Times has learnt.
The company operates 560 Crown offices but is planning to shut between 240 to 270 in a move that would leave hundreds of thousands of people without easy access to basic services.
It is currently losing £70 million a year, and managers insist that the losses are unsustainable. Critics have accused Royal Mail of asset stripping in an attempt to raise profits.Many of the post offices that could be sold are in prime locations and would command millions of pounds on the property market.
The sales will provoke public anger but could provide the beleaguered business with a cash injection. Royal Mail has told unions that the main post office network must be reduced to between 320 and 390 branches to be viable.
A spokesman said: “We have told the unions that with things as they are the number of offices we can make work is between 320 and 390.”
Managers have yet to identify which post offices will be closed or sold but those most at risk are likely to be in towns and cities because fewer Crown offices have survived in villages and because of greater sensitivity about rural closures.
Among the Crown offices that may be closed or sold are those in: Spring Gardens, Manchester; Bank Street, Bradford; and Trafalgar Square, London. They are popular with customers but also have high overheads.
The model for closures may be the former post office in George Square, Glasgow. It was sold for redevelopment as a luxury hotel.
Unions have accused Royal Mail of asset stripping because it is selling key sites which seem to offer good retail prospects. Last week Clapham Common Crown post office was put up for sale despite its position at the hub of a busy shopping area in southwest London.
But plans to close the main Crown office in Bradford have triggered opposition from an unexpected source.
Among those in Bradford to have signed a petition saying that they are appalled and that closure will lead to “a worsening of counter services” is Gerry Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South and the minister responsible for postal services.
The Communications Workers Union (CWU) said that Mr Sutcliffe’s protest highlighted a lack of control over Royal Mail.
Dave Walton, the CWU branch secretary at Bradford, said: “The question everyone keeps asking is ‘Who runs the post offices?’ “From this, it doesn’t seem to be the Government. It often doesn’t appear to be senior management and it isn’t the regulator, Postcomm. This shows that we need a post office network which is properly accountable to the people it serves.”
Embarrassingly, however, Mr Sutcliffe cannot get the consumers’ group, Postwatch, to back the campaign. It has told him that it will not object to the closure because there is a perfectly adequate sub-post office near by.
Mr Sutcliffe declined to comment but a spokesman for the DTI said: “Decisions on the future of Crown offices, after public consultation, are an operational and commercial matter for Post Office Ltd.
“The Government does not have a role and does not intervene. Ministers are free to act in their capacity as a constituency MP, supporting local efforts to retain an individual office.” Mr Sutcliffe signed the protest before he was given ministerial responsibility for Royal Mail.
Royal Mail will face questions this month from MPs on the Trade and Industry Select Committee over plans for Crown offices. It took the unusual step of saying that it was surprised that the Crown offices were under review.
The CWU will tell the select committee that the Government needs to do more to save Crown offices. Their numbers have shrunk dramatically in recent years. Andy Furey, CWU national officer, said: “They are asset stripping. Anyone who wants to take over a high street post office only has to ask. If they have to franchise an office like Clapham Common then nothing is safe.”
