General Features

if people continue to buy their postage through franking machines, tax their cars online and dont give the po chance to quote for their car and home insurance then how can the business survive - use your service or lose it!!
anon

the service i recieve from the church gresley post office is second to none.i use it about twice a week.please keep it open
linda sutton

Fortunately our local village Post Office isn't under threat - yet, but as successive administrations have cut down the no. of services the Post Office can offer (payment of various types of household bill, now switched to "more convenient" Pay Points, disappearance of the PO Savings Bank etc.)it seems to have been deliberate policy to squeeze the Post Office out and to slowly strangle it to death.Despite all the talk of Social Inclusion, the reality is that the elderly, the less able, the less mobile and the less well-off are being systematically marginalised and deliberately forgotten. There is certainly no longer any concept of providing a service to all sections of the community and a wilful disregard of large-scale unemployment caused by the Post Office closures. If all the Post Masters/Mistresses and their subs and other employees were all to walk out of factory gates together, it would look like the end of car production at Dagenham or in the West Midlkands and there would be an outcry. As only two or three people will be made redundant at each seperate location, the problem is conveniently hidden. However, no thought has been given to these soon-to-be-ex-Postal workers finding other jobs in areas of largely high unemployment and low wages. How can communities rebuild themselves and regenerate if the government consistently tears the heart out of them?
Dee Frith

It would be nice if the views of the Post Offices customers are actually taken into account before any action is taken. The majority of them will be the most vunerable people in the community, the elderly, disabled and unemployed. The people who make the decisions will probably never use a Post Office and will never realise how it could impact on customers who use public transport to get around. A five minute walk could now easily turn into a two hour journey, just to pay a bill or draw a pension. Lets have some common sense for the less fortunate in our society.
Dean, Alfreton

hardly any wonder that they are closing post offices. more and more services are being taken away from them. tv licences,car tax online, pensions direct into bank accounts, you can even print your own stamps now. the end of the post office is nigh. be warned - it will be a sad day when they close
h

I am disgusted with the post office closures. What is going to happen to the old and disabled who rely on the post office for collecting their pensions every week and are unable to get into town to banks
Sue , Selston

As someone who managed a Post Office for Midlands Co-op until last year, I am fully aware of the true reasons behind Post Office closures. Many postmasters have put their whole lives into building a business, maybe owning and living above the shop, and being tied to what used to be considered a "nice little earner". The core business has changed, though. it used to be pensions and benefits, bills and postage in that order. There was no real competition. Nowadays, the pensions and benefits are paid into bank accounts, bills can be paid at your local newsagent or petrol station. You don't even have to go to the post office to send a parcel now - you can download the postage labels from the internet. The very medium that allows me to express my opinion, - the www - has played its part in the decline of post office business. The postmaster still has to pay way though, his staff, Council Tax, Business Rates and utilities, never mind putting a meal on the table, just like you and me. The difference is that after putting in a full day "at the office" and having to undergo rigorous testing to ensure that he/she is compliant with all the current regulations, and being subject to financial penalties if, heaven forbid, they make a mistake, and being so heavily constrained by rules and regulations that they are not allowed to go any way but the Post Office Way. Many of the people reading this will enjoy increases in their income - even those on benefits and state pensions get a "cost of living" increase, but postmasters have seen their income falling steadily for years. And in so far as many of them really do enjoy the special place that they have in their customers' hearts, they really can't afford to do it for the love of it. The Post Office offers a generous exit package, and I, for one, do not blame anyone that chooses to take it. Enjoy your retirement, guys, you've earned it!
Helen from Derby College

Many elderly living in the area will be devastated with this decision.Vote for the party who will consider helping the old instead of letting the rich receive 1M£ tax free inheritance.
Harold Shelton Lock

that silly little man that tried to run the f.a has now done the same with the post office god help the old people
g welch

The BBC urge us to use our local Post Office but I can no longer buy my Licence there,do not do as we do do as we tell you BBC should be a comercial enterprise not funded by the goverment to put out modern day propaganda
A Non

Government policy has removed all the business from the Post Office (Pensions, Banking,TV Licensing) as a pretext to justify closures
John Hinchliffe

Thank God for our Labour Government!
John Hinchliffe

I already have to travel 5 miles to my nearest Post Office since our village one closed a number of years ago. Now they are planning to close the branch at Moorhall in Bakewell that you can actually park nearby and not have to queue for ages at.
Shirley Johnston

Disgusting - whole villages left without a service. It will be very hard for the elderly to cope. Some of the post offices earmarked are already operating in pubs or other premisses to keep the service going so shutting these seems absolute folly. What happened to common sense.
Clive Sturgess

I think it is disgusting that they are even thinking of closeing the Ashbourn Rd post office there are a lot of pensioners that relie on this office for there pensions & other postal requirements,there are also a lot of buisnesses around there that use it.
Mr,D.Frost

Nice to see that the privatisation of the post-office under Leighton and Adam Crozier continues at pace. Oh, did someone say the customer would be losing out? How moronic... I thought privatisation sought to meet the needs of the consumer!
Madraig Merkovic

Is this more bully boy tactics of the govt wanting people to use direct debits/banks,after the rece nt scare eg Northern Rock and imposing bank charges. The govt should know better!!! Also what about those that have to use public transport
angela whitton

if they got rid off some of the managers within the postal service and cut their cloth to suit their budget the funds could be used on the correct resources and the public end of the spectrum
anon

I don't have any negative issues with these closures.
David, Ripley

Belper has lost 7 Post Offices over the last few years, with many also going in local villages. The proposed closure of Openwoodgate PO means that Belper has just one, to serve 20,000 plus people.
Tony

I am disgusted about the proposed closure of further Post Offices. We rely on our little branch on Starkholmes Road. Matlock. The main branch in Matlock is so busy that there are almost always queues which reach beyond the doors. Maybe I do have an alternative to collecting my pension( another huge issue here), but I regularly post letters & packets both to here in the UK & overseas & simply do not have the time to waste standing in a queue at aforementioned Main Post office. Parking is another issue, in Matlock that is in very short supply. Post Offices play a major part in rural community life , especially for older members.Sincerely. Ursula Mellors
Ursula in Matlock

Why not shut the lot and be done,year in year out the public of this country see their life lines eroded.How do you think the elderly with no one to run around for them survive without a public service,I predict within the next ten years we'll collect our own mail from main post offices.
JOHN Whittamore