TEIGNBRIDGE Council united to condemn the government's move to close 2,500 post offices across the UK, particularly any loss of local post offices in Teignbridge.
Introducing the motion at Teignbridge Council's budget meeting, Council leader Cllr Alan Connett said that post offices were vital to the well-being of communities. 'Lose your post office and lose the beating heart of many towns and villages. We have seen what has happened in Newton Abbot with some of the closures locally and I have a very real worry about the relocation of the post office to Queen Street and what it will mean to the town centre. I suspect many of the small traders will notice the difference.'
The motion labels the closures as 'unnecessary' and calls instead for greater investment in the post office network. It asks for the lifting of restrictions what post offices can sell and for government to restore the business it has re-directed elsewhere.
It welcomes the government's U-turn on scrapping the Post Office Card Account and calls on government to stop pressurising claimants to have benefits and pensions paid directly into bank accounts. It also calls on local MPS to lobby ministers on their behalf.
Cllr Stuart Barker said that the council should also look at what services it could direct through post offices, something it hadn't always done in the past. 'It is essential that we get that message over that if people want to see post offices and local shops they have to make sure they use them.' Cllr Geoff Bladon used the opportunity to plead for better signing for Teignmouth's post office – Devon County Council had been asked for repeatedly.
But Cllr Roy Phillips said that whatever efforts they made it was only 'a drop in the ocean'. 'This is a fundamental service which they [the government] have systematically undermined.'