HAVING read last week’s Standard, there were two items included, one as an article the other a letter, regarding changes taking place within the structure of the post office.

I wonder if the general public know or realise what is really happening and what changes the post office are making, do they care? All sub post offices are not run on the same lines; when you take over a sub post office, you must continue to run it as it has been run previously.

Three years ago my daughter and a friend took over a sub post office and a shop near Burford. The opening hours of the post office were 9am-5pm, five days a week and 9am-12.30pm on a Saturday – no closing for lunch and no early closing day; this is how it had been run and so it had to continue.

For this the post office paid a wage, all sub post offices are not paid a wage but get a commission on sales they make.

The retail side of the business, which is also a newsagents, opens at 6.30am and closes at 7.30pm six days a week and 8am-1pm on a Sunday. Now the powers that be want the post office to be open the same hours as the retail side of the business, 83 hours a week and stop paying them a wage, replying on commission from sales from the extra hours open to compensate.

They also want to abolish the secure post office counter and have business conducted from the retail counter; overall with the extra hours open it would mean taking on additional staff and security, privacy and confidentiality would be done away with.

Other changes that have already started is doing away with the ability to get your Car Road Licence at the post office, N S & I have taken all their product away from the post office, Premium Bonds, Savings, Child Bonds and Isas.

Pensions are being reviewed to see how these can be paid alternatively; TV Licences and Green Giro’s can only be dealt with at Paypoint; the only thing offered by the post office is stamps, postal orders and banking facilities.

In many cases if you are sending parcels or packets through the post, you can obtain prepaid labels over the internet. At my daughter’s post office it is not unfamiliar for someone to take in a sack of parcels that have got prepaid labels on, the contents of the parcels are items sold on Ebay, the shop has to accommodate these parcels until the post van collects them and she gets paid nothing for the trouble.

The argument the post office authorities put forward is the retail side of the business may benefit from a sale.

These barmy ideas may well satisfy the shareholders of the moment, but the way things are going, the post office will soon be a thing of the past.

BRIAN ROBBINS

Cirencester