Letter submitted to consultation

Anita Turner
Network Development Manager
Post Office Ltd
C/O National Consultation team
FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM

1st April

Dear Ms Turner,

I am very surprised to hear that as part of the Area Plan for London, Post Office Ltd is proposing to close Bensham Lane (104) Post Office.

This post office (Bensham Lane) provides an essential local service and is very much part of the fabric of our urban community. Closing this post office will leave local residents, including the elderly, disabled and mothers with young children, having to travel around a mile for their postal services. Evidence of the dismay felt by the community can be seen in the local papers. I have given a photocopy of the letters page in the boroughwide local newspaper, Croydon Guardian, to Mr Sunil Patel – the postmaster. I hope he submits this to you. Links for the letters can be read below.

It should be noted that the Broad Green and Bensham Manor wards are experiencing massive growth in population. There are several new housing developments which are just being brought online. The Queensgate development on Pawsons Road has 350 units and this is just yards away from the post office. There are several new housing developments on London Road. I request you take into consideration the increased demand for postal services in the area. It can be argued that we need two Post Office in the London Road/Whitehorse Road area.

On a more environmental note, the closing of the post office on Bensham Lane is likely to increase car journeys as people will choose to drive to the next available Post Office. This will increase pollution, congestion and carbon emissions and will have negative impact on the environment.

I urge you to reconsider your decision.

Yours sincerely

Shasha Khan
Croydon Green Party

PS Sent by snail mail and email.
1) Letter 1
2) Letter 2
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Tags croydon, greenparty

Post office closure letter

14.03.08

Dear Editor,

Along with Kingston, Croydon will have the highest number of compulsory closures if Post Office Ltd has their way.
My local post office on Bensham Lane is one of those that is earmarked for closure. If it disappears then I am concerned that we will end up with a parade of boarded up shops because the businesses adjacent to it will lose valuable passing trade.
The postmaster Sunil Patel wants to remain open but unlike previous rounds of closure these are compulsory. Together we have organised a petition and printed posters for his shop window.
This is what it has come to. We have to show Post Office Limited’s Network Development Manager, the now infamous Anita Turner, that our local post office deserves to stay open, possibly instead of one in Ealing or Hackney or even, perish the thought, one of the others in Croydon. It is a sad state of affairs. The problem is that the powers that be just do not recognise how vital our local post offices are. They have starved and broken up the network in order to open up this vital service to European competition – a full three years before any other nation in the EU. For example Royal Mail cannot reciprocate by making a bid for mail delivery in Germany or Holland as German and Dutch law forbids it.

Post Offices are more than just businesses that can be simply axed at will in the quest for profits. These are vital local services which help define our communities. The elderly, disabled and those with young children that need a local post office will be most affected by these proposals.

We must fight these closures otherwise I fear that our post offices will become a **distant** memory.

Yours sincerely


Shasha Khan
Croydon Green Party

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Tags croydon, greenparty