A correspondent writes:
The closure of the Exmouth’s Post Office is causing great difficulties to many people. We need a solution to be sorted out very quickly although I think the suggestion by Post Office Ltd (POL) that it might take up to 6 months is disingenuous. I believe 22 TG Jones branches that had post offices have been closed during September alone. According to press reports, TG Jones had post offices in 180 branches and ‘as many as 60 could be closed’. Does POL have the resources to set up new arrangements for that many locations within 6 months? It seems unlikely.
There is then the question of the contract that WH Smith had with POL.
On 15 May of this year, the Guardian reported that Modella Capital, the private equity group that bought and renamed the loss-making WH Smith branches, had ‘written to creditors saying it will amend Post Office contracts so that outlets that lose their leases can be closed with just 56 days’ notice – less than a third of the current notice period of six months’.
It appears that this plan was implemented, given that we had only about 5 weeks’ notice that the Exmouth branch was to close.
How was Modella allowed to ‘amend Post Office contracts’? Presumably POL agreed to the amendment.
Why did POL not insist that the Post Office branches remain operational for the full 6 months’ notice period? This could be done in Exmouth: it seems highly unlikely that the landlord will find a new tenant for the shop, so surely Modella could be made to keep the Post Office open even if the rest of the shop is bare?
Given Modella’s reputation, it seems possible that POL was told that if it didn’t agree to the change in the contract, Modella would put TG Jones into administration. There is nothing to suggest that this is what they did, but it might explain why POL appears not to have enforced the contracts: if it was a question of sacrificing 60 Post Offices to save 120, perhaps the managers thought that accepting the change was the lesser of two evils.
POL is, in effect, owned by the Government. It has a legal responsibility to provide specific services within communities. Surely the responsible Minister should be explaining why the country is facing the loss of branches that provide these vital services to millions of people?
