Post Office Local – will it stamp out our post problems?

My local Post Office closed in the past year. I used it only a few times a year, but since there was usually a queue I was very surprised when it closed. I will now have to drive two or three miles to post larger items and remember to buy stamps at the same time.

I can’t say that I will miss my local Post Office, which was in depressing, scruffy shop. I feel sorry for those who used to queue up to collect their pension, and wonder what they do now.

Consumer Focus is also calling on the banks to offer all current account transactions at post offices, especially pressing on HSBC and Santander to allow access to current accounts at post offices and for all banks to raise awareness that you can access your current account at post offices.

I have to say I didn’t know I could – beyond using an ATM. Did anyone else?

I didn’t know that, but being a Smile customer, the Post Office is the only place I’m able to pay in cheques.

What amazes me about post offices, though, is that long queues are just standard. It’s got to the stage where people expect to be queuing in a snake around the whole room – no one ever seems surprised when they walk in to a packed room. If I have to do anything at the post office I basically write off my lunch hour for doing that one task. I’m not normally one to moan about queuing, but surely there’s a better way?

Well, I’m glad the Government is making courier services a little bit richer at the expense of the public – again.

I love my local post office on Stoke Newington Church Street in Hackney. True, there are often queues – though they’re rarely as bad as those in the bigger PO on the High Street. And true there are some things you can’t get there (passports, for one); but for most day-to-day transactions, it’s fine. But there’s a friendly atmosphere here that you just don’t get in the bigger branches. The two guys behind the counter are friendly and helpful, and interact with their customers rather than just taking their money. They are part of the community. Stoke Newington is often said to be like a village, and this PO is one of the reasons why. So yes, I’d miss them.

I do have a PO in the centre of town at the back of Sainsbury’s. This is, however, the only one left within a very wide area. We are a rural area and all the village POs have had to close, which leaves a large area of population having to visit the town PO. This means that there are always long queues and one just gives up hope during, say, the Christmas period!

Rural POs are a must for their communities. It is often the only way that villagers get to see each other and to deal with their affairs. POs, like pubs, are the hub of village life and essential to rural communities.

My ‘local’ PO is the main one in the centre of Reading. This gives me all the facilities I want and its version of queuing is quite civilised. I only go there two or three times per year, e.g. to post a parcel etc. I hate the idea of this ‘local PO’ which sounds as though it will have a very limited set of facilities.

We have a local post office but its now part of our local supermarket. When queues form you can be in the way of shoppers. They have notices up about refusing payments by cheque after July. Are these now out of date? There is just one person in the post office part and he is kept very busy since the other post office closed down.