MP: Post office closures

Jun 6 2008 by Pete Wishart, MP

WELL, Perthshire has learned its fate in the latest round of Post Office closures and it’s a mixed bag for the Big County. Rural Perthshire has escaped relatively lightly, with only one closure in Kinrossie and a further five receiving a reduced service. However there is no such comfort for the city area, which will see the closure of three vital offices.

The closures at Cherrybank, Garth Avenue and Bridgend will seriously impact on the service throughout the city and will disproportionately affect the most elderly and vulnerable within our community.

First of all, let’s remember why we got here. For the past ten years, the Westminster Government has systematically and deliberately been withdrawing business from the Post Office. Only five years ago, it would be the Post Office where you would withdraw your pension, secure benefits and pay your television licence. Today, you do hardly any of these things. These were core activities for the Post Office and it was providing these services that made them profitable. These services were required in every locality and that is why the Post Office secured a pivotal place in so many communities. The Government were then forced to subsidise the cost of the Post Office, an undertaking they are no longer prepared to do, so therefore the closures.

Locally, the result of all of this; is that services people have depended on for years will now disappear. Where the closure in Garth Avenue may seem reasonable in that there are other Post Offices nearby, they are not easily reached by pensioners who will have to negotiate the hills in the way.

Cherrybank again has Post Offices nearby in Craigie and Oakbank, but the Post Office at Cherrybank has long served the communities along Glasgow Road and its loss will mean inconvenience for many.

However, it is the closure in Bridgend that concerns me most. Its closure will mean no Post Office on the east side of the river, leaving the people of Kinnoull and Bridgend having to either go to an already stowed-out central Post Office in South Street or make the journey up to Scone. Pensioner groups have already been in touch with me about this situation voicing their very real concern.

This is why I have asked the Post Office to come to Perth to explain this closure and hear what the local people have to say about the loss of this provision.