Post Office to Close 115 Branches and Cut Hundreds of Jobs Amid Major Shake-Up
- 115 loss-making Crown Post Offices to close, impacting hundreds of jobs
- Plans to shift to a franchise model while maintaining the total number of branches
- Cost savings to boost postmasters' pay and invest in automation
The Post Office has announced plans to close 115 loss-making Crown Post Offices as part of a sweeping overhaul of its operations, affecting hundreds of jobs. The closures are part of a transition to a franchise model, which will see independent operators take on the management of affected branches.
Despite the closures, the overall number of branches is expected to remain steady at around 11,500, as many are independently run by postmasters or retailers like WHSmith and Co-op.
Post Office chairman Nigel Railton is set to meet with staff and postmasters to outline the "New Deal," which aims to increase postmasters’ share of revenues and invest in technologies like self-service tills and note-counting machines.
Martin Quinn of Campaign for Cash criticised the decision, saying: “This is another nail in the coffin for communities who rely on the Post Office network for access to cash services."
I took some royal mail parcels to a collectplus dropping off point yesterday. Very convenient for me but perhaps not ideal to maintain the profitability of post offices in general. If you are in a village with a convenience store that does collectplus and you have a local post office too it puts that post office under a lot of financial pressure to survive when people can just post their royal mail parcels when they go to the convenience store.
This is such a bad strategy on the Post Office’s behalf. Rural areas need Post Offices and so do big towns and cities. Please think again about this drastic change Post Office management, it’s Very Detrimental to whole communities.