Royal Mail to trial extra mobile post offices, consult MPs earlier on closures

Royal Mail Group said it will trial ‘outreach’ post offices in urban areas, after successfully introducing more than 100 of the facilities based in vans, shops and community centres in rural communities.

The outreach branches, which will eventually number 500 in the countryside, have been created to retain some services following the planned closure of 2,500 post offices across the country, it said.

Alan Cook, MD of Post Office Ltd, which is part of Royal Mail Group, said: ‘We have been developing outreach services successfully for the past five years with support from Government and want to test whether this approach can be applied to more communities.’

The Communications Workers Union, however, said the proposed outreach services were not a genuine alternative to post office branches, and they were only needed because of the closure programme.

‘Having a van provide post office services for a few hours a week is a poor substitute for a permanent local offices,’ CWU national officer Andy Furey said.

Post Office Ltd also said today it would increase the involvement of MPs in the branch closure process by engaging with them 10 days before the start of public consultations.

This move was dismissed by the CWU, which said earlier notification will have no effect on the disappearance of post offices until the consultation process is changed.

‘We again call on the government and Post Office to place a moratorium on further closures and franchises and to sign up to genuine consultation process which lasts 12, not six, weeks,’ Furey said.