14.03.08Dear 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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