Dundee
SSP members send their petitions off
Dundee fights Post Office closures
by Alan Graham, Dundee SSP
At the end of May the proposed post office closures and service reductions
for the North East of Scotland and Fife were announced. Unlike previous
consultations, there were only six weeks allocated to lodge objections.
Of the four closures announced in Dundee, two were the local branches
of some SSP activists.
Immediately there were proclamations from Councillors, MPs, etc who
could see the opposition to these closures. The SNP sent out surveys
asking if you supported their campaign to oppose the closures (and
five questions about who you will vote for).
For the SSP the priority
was not to advertise the party but to
build opposition
to the closures.
We distributed leaflets in the days immediately after the announcement
urging people to send in letters to the Consultation Team at Royal
Mail and to discuss the issue with their neighbours to build opposition
and organise amongst themselves to oppose the plans.
In the meantime the local press was urging people to send objections
to Postwatch, but not printing the contact details for the Consultation
Team, or letters from campaigners with the contact details.
The contact details are buried in one of four large inaccessible documents
on a massive page on a sub-section of the Royal Mail site - available
for anyone to find, should they set out to find it and have an hour
to spare.
In the four weeks since the announcement we have leafleted affected
areas regularly and had to form queues at our petitions, people were
gladly taking leaflets in the street and chatting on the stalls.
Last week a byline in the local press about the “Queen Mums Post Office”
being closed mentioned that a petition was being counted as one objection.
Never mind the absurdity of this, we could see lots of work being wasted
by the ridiculous terms of the ‘consultation’ process.
We immediately changed tactics. Rather than sign petitions, we would
print some objection letters. The address is Freeport so we could get
people to sign these on the stall, send them off and get more objections
in during the period.
We were overwhelmed on the stalls by members of the public signing
the letters and discussing the issues at length. In a couple of hours
we managed to get around 100 letters signed and posted.
It is clear that the Post Office aren’t running a proper consultation.
One branch has been saved in the Highlands due to overwhelming
opposition.
Postmasters affected in Dundee are saying that “it’s already been decided”.
One public meeting has been organised by some councillors, where are
the meetings organised by the Post Office to justify the measure? Where
are the notices in the local press letting people know the
contact details to object?
There is no transparency in the process at all.
We still have two weeks of campaigning to go, it’s been a lot of work,
and this is just in Dundee.
Dundee, population around 150,000 is set to lose four branches, Cupar,
population 9,000ish, is set to lose two.
It is proposed to close 15 in Fife and dozens in Angus are having their
service cut.
This will have a devastating effect on these communities.
Some of the smaller villages have a Post Office and a shop, if the
Post Office doesn’t also function as the local shop too.
99 per cent of people having a branch within a mile is no consolation
to OAP’s in Dundee at the bottom of the hill 0.9 miles away from the
nearest branch, it’s even worse to those facing the couple of busses
a day to the nearest village (a Free Public Transport policy
could help here).
And all this to save a fraction of the money wasted in Iraq, changing
Post Office to Consignia and back again, and paying for consultants
in the NHS.
Royal Mail: a company where the boss gets £3million a year. A company
losing money because of the successive Thatcherite governments mass
drive towards privatisation, where the most profitable parts of the
Post Office are sold off for peanuts.