Councils should run post offices

Cllr Stephen Castle the Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Regeneration and the 2012 Games in Essex wants Councils to take over Post Offices

As ConservativeHome regulars I hope you will have had the opportunity to follow our campaign to safeguard the future of our postal network. After re-opening our first post office in September, and ahead of announcing more re-openings in the coming months, we've now published a pamphlet that we hope will take the debate on delivering these services in a new and exciting direction.

We have been hugely encouraged by the enthusiasm of so many local councils and were delighted recently to welcome many of them to a national conference where this pamphlet was launched. We are now urging the Government and our Conservative colleagues to read this pamphlet and act to safeguard the future of our postal services.

At its heart, 'Counter Measures' presents radical plans to split Post Office Ltd into two - Post Office Ltd's commercial assets and its community assets (the branch network).

In the 'Counter Measures' vision upper tier and unitary authorities would become custodians of the branch network – and therefore being divided from PO Ltd's commercial assets (its products e.g. broadband, ISAs etc). Councils would be free to shape the post office network to meet local needs - innovating with service co-location, contracts and commissioning arrangements to create appropriate incentives for local postmasters.  Post Office Ltd would continue to market its products and win contracts, and post office branches would continue to sell Post Office Ltd products.

David Cameron: Post offices can survive

Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, David Cameron has attacked the government's closure of post offices that could become profitable. The newspaper reports fifty branches will be axed in Birmingham, Warwickshire and Solihull, with another 69 under threat in Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

"Challenged to promise that a Tory Government would prevent post office closures, Mr Cameron said he would make it easier for them to make a profit and stay open, for example by helping them to provide services to rival mail delivery services and not just the Royal Mail.

“We want to see them compete in more areas.

“For instance, allowing them to take different traffic from different parcel firms. I think that would make a difference.

“I think also we need an urgent renewal of the post office card account, and we’ve said that we would do that.

“We also have a situation where if post offices can prove they can make themselves work then they shouldn’t be part of a closure programme. It does seem that the closure programme is very automatic, and doesn’t actually take into account the potential profitability of the post office.”