Wimborne Post Office Petition - Street Stalls

We were out collecting signatures for the 'We want our Post Office' back petition in Wimborne this morning.

We set up two street stalls, one by Somerfields and the other in the Square. Both were incredibly busy, with people queueing up to sign the petition. We estimate we collected over 500 signatures this morning alone.

Thanks to the team that took part, and in particular thanks to Robin Cook and Anthony Oliver for sorting the positions out and to Anthony for staying all morning to help out.

Bournemouth Borough Council Post Offices Meeting

Straight off the plane this afternoon and down to the Town Hall to attend a meeting of the Developing Communities and Tackling Crime Scrutiny and Review Panel. The meeting was about the Post Office closure programme in Dorset and a number of councillors and members of the public attended.

I'm delighted to report that a motion deploring the closure programme was passed by the panel unanimously. They also called for Bournemouth Council to approach Poole and Christchurch to organise a joint approach to any proposed closures, starting with Bournemouth offering support to Poole over their opposition to the closure of the Post Office at Adastral Square, Canford Heath.

The motion now goes to Bournemouth's Cabinet for their approval and action.

A salutory lesson from the US

I have been to Florida before, but never to the part where I am currently staying, which is the coastal strip to the north of Miami. My previous trip was limited to the Keys and Miami itself.

The one thing that has struck me is that there really are no facilities for pedestrians in this area. The communities to the north of Miami create one huge strip of suburbia, strung out along the beaches. The beach fronts themselves are not disimilar to similar areas in Spain or France, however there any similarity ends.

Unless you have a car I can't see how you can reach facilities. It took us some time to find a grocery store yesterday. There are the odd Seven - 11s, however these don't sell fresh fruit, vegetables or bread. Unless you are able to take your car to the local out of town supermarket there are no facilities to buy food. There are of course the ubiquitous malls, however even these have no food shops in them. How do the elderly and vulnerable manage?

The announcement of the closure of the Adastral Square Post Office in Canford Heath this week brings home again how fragile our local services are. If we're not to become like Florida we need to ensure our local communities retain these services.

We announced on Tuesday the extension of our petition to specifically cover the Adastral Square closure, asking the post office to ensure that the service is retained in this area of the Heath. Local facilities have to be fought for these days, I'm determined we'll lead that fight.

A salutory lesson from the US

I have been to Florida before, but never to the part where I am currently staying, which is the coastal strip to the north of Miami. My previous trip was limited to the Keys and Miami itself.

The one thing that has struck me is that there really are no facilities for pedestrians in this area. The communities to the north of Miami create one huge strip of suburbia, strung out along the beaches. The beach fronts themselves are not disimilar to similar areas in Spain or France, however there any similarity ends.

Unless you have a car I can't see how you can reach facilities. It took us some time to find a grocery store yesterday. There are the odd Seven - 11s, however these don't sell fresh fruit, vegetables or bread. Unless you are able to take your car to the local out of town supermarket there are no facilities to buy food. There are of course the ubiquitous malls, however even these have no food shops in them. How do the elderly and vulnerable manage?

The announcement of the closure of the Adastral Square Post Office in Canford Heath this week brings home again how fragile our local services are. If we're not to become like Florida we need to ensure our local communities retain these services.

We announced on Tuesday the extension of our petition to specifically cover the Adastral Square closure, asking the post office to ensure that the service is retained in this area of the Heath. Local facilities have to be fought for these days, I'm determined we'll lead that fight.

Save Dorset's Post Offices - Update from Oliver Letwin

Oliver Letwin MP, who of course represents West Dorset, is in the process of establishing a task force to look at ways by which sub post office incomes can be increased, thereby enabling them to stay open.

Here's what his office has to say:

Oliver Letwin, who has campaigned vigorously against post office closures both locally (at Toller Porcorum and Bradpole) and nationally, is now seeking to establish a task force. This will consist of representatives of all levels of local government and local bodies, others with expertise in the field, and volunteers willing to lend their support. Their role will be to prepare plans to increase revenues or find imaginative ways of sharing costs for sub-post offices that are threatened as a result of the Government’s new proposals.

It's an excellent initiative and one that hopefully can be extended to the rest of the County.

Can a company grow too large?

Jonathan Sheppard, who runs the excellent Tory Radio site, has alerted me to this article in last weekend’s Sunday Times.

It suggests that half of all the new retail space created in the UK last year was taken by Tesco. That’s over 2 million square feet of shopping space, more than the entire Bluewater shopping centre.

Can that be healthy? For competition and for consumers? As a Tory you might expect me to be open to the market and accept that this is what market forces dictate. Well, in this case I’m not.

The increasing dominance of out of town shopping centres concerns me greatly. I believe that we must safeguard our town centres and most importantly local shopping centres. Not to do so is to be very short sited.

At least Tesco, through their Tesco Metro network, seem to recognise this too. However, in Fordingbridge where my parents live, they immediately disposed of the post office from the One Stop store they took over. It concerns me that, in this case at least, they put retail space and therefore profit before community need.

Providing easily accessible local facilities, not least shops and of course post offices, is essential to the sustainability of communities. In time, as environmental and energy conservation issues discourage us from such frequent travel, these facilities will be vital. We need to look to the long term and find ways by which we can support and protect local shops and shopping centres.

It's a theme I'm passionate about and to which I'll be returning in the coming weeks.

Post Office Closures

Yesterday's Times carried a warning of proposed post office closures next week. Apparently Royal Mail hope to close anything up to half of the current network. The government is likely to only allow the closure of between 3,500 and 4,000. You can read the full story here.

The issue of post office closures is one that concerns me greatly and as soon as we have any indication of which, if any, of our post offices may be under threat then I’ll start campaigning for them straight away. I think the issue goes well beyond the convenience of banking and shopping for local people.

Local post offices are an integral part of our rural communities. As we move towards a situation where we encourage people to leave their cars at home and use local facilities and public transport it seems crazy to me that we are not providing some form of ‘transitional relief’ to encourage the continuance of such vital local services. Services that in my opinion will become even more vital as time goes on.