Save Crawley's Post Offices - vote against the Labour government's plans

1.46.34pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 21st Apr 2006

Labour - the biggest single cause of Post Office closures

Crawley Liberal Democrats warned many years ago that due to the actions of MP's such as Crawley's Labour MP Laura Moffat that more Post Offices could close in Crawley. (See news story on this website http://www.crawleylibdems.org.uk/news/6.html when Northgate Lib Dem Councillors Linda and Gordon Seekings met local Post Office chiefs). Now, it seems, the Federation of sub-postmasters are warning that there could be further closures as a result of the government's action.

The Post Office network is crumbling. Over the last two decades, post offices have been closing at a rate of over 300 a year. Under the last Conservative Government, 3,500 local post offices closed, and under Labour another 4,000 have closed, hitting communities across the country.

And things are set to get even worse. The Government has announced that it will not extend its contract beyond 2010 for pension and benefit payments using the Post Office Card Account, worth £1billion of income for post offices between 2003 and 2010. The likelihood is that, without government intervention, over the next few years, 10,000 of the current 14,000 post office branches (urban and rural) will close.

It is inevitable that some of these will be in Crawley.

Following the passing of the new policy at Harrogate Conference in March 2006, the Liberal Democrats are the only party to have a costed and credible set of proposals to keep post offices open and, where necessary, to open others. Our opponents have no such policy.

Our plan keeps the Post Office Ltd in the public sector and enables Royal Mail employees to get a share in their company through a radical employee share ownership Trust, similar to the John Lewis Partnership. Royal Mail will take a new ownership model, with the sale of some of its shares providing the investment needed by our post offices.

Related Links:

News report of when Northgate's Lib Dem Councillors met local Post Office chiefs.

The Liberal Democrats campaign to stop Post Office closures.