Saturday 3 November 2007

Saving my local post office

Post Office Ltd recently announced the planned closure of Melton Road Post Office, my local branch in Nottingham. On a personal level, the loss of the post office around the corner would be a big blow to me as I've come to rely on it for my business. And Vjay and Tripta, the lovely postmaster and mistress, always brighten the day and ask every single customer how they are doing. The post office is a pillar of the community and its presence helps the row of shops (including a fishmonger, 2 delis, grocer, newsagent, etc) keep going. The elderly customers will also suffer as the alternative is too far to walk.

The greatest argument in its favour is the fact the this post office is one of the top performing branches in the county proving that PO Ltd has selected branches at random to close. All of these arguments led me to thinking that something could be done to prevent the closure. Vjay couldn't start a petition himself so I took matters into my own hands and printed off a petition sheet for people to sign against the planned closure. The petition quickly took off, and with only a couple weeks to go before the public consultation deadline, we have already more than 4,000 signatures. In fact, the closure was such a surprise that Ken Clarke, our local MP has decided to get involved. The picture above is the moment when he met a handful of the post office's customers this weekend to collect the signatures to take to PO Ltd himself.

I'm not one to get involved with party politics but on this occasion, I might allow myself to say "go Ken!" and let's hope he can work some magic with the Post Office.

The online petition is here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/meltonroad/ - feel free to sign!

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