At the July meeting of the Council, we had a debate about the proposed closure of the Post Offices in Langworthy, Adelphi and Patricroft. These closures have come about - on top of the ones from a few years ago - because the Labour Government has ordered the Post Office to close 2500 Post Offices across the country. Every local area across the country is being hit hard.
Salford Labour have embarked on something of a face-saving exercise with regard to these closures. I don’t doubt their sincerity in wanting the threatened branches to stay open, but as they don’t want to embarrass the Government they’ve opted for hand-wringing words over actual action.
The Government’s figure of 2500 Post Office closures is set in stone. The only argument is over which Post Offices close. Labour Councillors can (and did) make impassioned pleas about the importance of these particular Post Offices, but they also knew damned well that it wouldn’t make the slightest jot of difference. Keeping Langworthy open would only mean putting Lower Kersal under threat, saving Patricroft would have left Peel Green vulnerable, and so on. As for expecting the Post Office to close branches in all the neighbouring boroughs but leaving Salford unscathed… highly unlikely.
The only guaranteed way to save our local Post Offices is to persuade the Government to suspend their closure programme. Conservative MPs in Parliament asked the Government to do this and they refused - all our three Salford Labour MPs voted to keep closing Post Offices. At last month’s Council Meeting I asked the Labour Council to lobby the Government to suspend the closure programme - and every single Labour Councillor stuck their head in the sand and said no.
It gave me no pleasure at all to read this morning that following Salford Labour’s hand-wringing, all three threatened Post Offices have missed their chance of a reprieve and will be closing as planned. This is a huge blow for local residents in the affected areas - they have been badly let down by the local Labour Party who have chosen empty words over action.
The reason that these three Post Offices are closing is because the Government has embarked on a huge closure programme, and our Labour Council (and other Labour Councils like them) have refused to stand up and take the Government on.
Oh what a short memory you politicians seem to have Iain. The Conservatives now oppose the closures, even though they shut 3,500 post offices when they were in office. You say you want to save them but you have not put forward (from what I can see) ANY serious proposals to revive the post office network. Can you really claim the moral political high ground over Salford Labour on this one?
You are quite right to point out Labour’s determination in making sure that ALL of the proposed 2,500 Post Office closures will go ahead. If one Post Office were to be saved in Salford, the likelihood is that another Salford post office would be chosen for closure instead. However, to say that “all three threatened Post Offices have missed their chance of a reprieve and will be closing as planned” is a tad premature.
Now I know that the government has written to all the post offices concerned stating that the decision is final and they claim there is no formal appeal procedure. However, why can’t our locally elected members, such as yourself, contact Postwatch and point out all the reasons for the closures (that have been provided post consultation), that you don’t agree with? Maybe you could look into certain aspects of the consultation that you believed were flawed or not considered?
Also, surely there is the possibility to take these decisions to the high court?
Adam I covered the Conservative proposals to support Post Offices in a previous post.
Clearly the previous Conservative Government didn’t get everything right, but it’s worth remembering that the Labour Party have been in Government since I was 14 years old. Thousands of Post Offices have closed since 2000 and now another 2500 have had their death warrant signed. I can’t redo changes made ten years ago or more but I can have my say on what is happening at the moment - and it stinks.