Kirsty and Roger Williams run campaign to save Post Offices

1.20.58pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 9th Jan 2007

Kirsty Williams AM and Roger Williams MP at Brecon Post Office

Brecon & Radnorshire's Liberal Democrat MP, Roger Williams, and Welsh Assembly Member, Kirsty Williams, are starting a constituency-wide campaign to raise awareness of the Labour Government's proposals for the post office network in the UK, which they say pose a major threat to the future of dozens of local post offices in the villages and market towns of Brecon & Radnorshire and Mid Wales.

The Government has launched a consultation process on its proposals that ends in just 8 week's time (8th March). Kirsty and Roger are determined to encourage as many of their constituents as possible to respond to the Government's consultation, while at the same time they will be issuing their own consultation response form that asks the questions that they think need answering, but which the Government has not properly addressed.

To enable the public to have as much chance as possible to take part in the consultation process, Kirsty and Roger will be distributing copies of the consultation documents to every County Councillor, Community Council, post office, library and public building, encouraging people to respond and make their views known.

Commenting on the campaign, Kirsty Williams said:

"The post office network is under threat as never before. The proposal by the Labour Government at Westminster to discontinue the post office card account (POCA) from 2010, without saying what will replace it to enable people to withdraw benefits and pensions in cash from their local post office, is just the latest hammer blow to the future viability of the network. It is clear that the current subsidy to sub-post offices that keeps them viable will not be continued as it is after 2011 and already the Government has announced it wants to close 2,500 post offices across the UK over the next 18 months. The situation could not be more grave and we have to respond urgently."

Roger Williams said:

"We have already taken action ahead of the recent Government announcement. For example, a couple of months ago, Lembit Opik, MP for Montgomeryshire, and I wrote to every County Councillor in Powys and every Community Council, urging them to write to the Minister responsible at Westminster, Jim Fitzpatrick MP, to express their concern at the Government's proposals. Powys County Council backed our call unanimously and many Community Councils wrote to the Minister. Now we have to move to the next phase of the campaign against these proposals, which I believe could lead to the closure of dozens of our local post offices and cause so much damage to our communities."

Notes:

· The questions that Kirsty and Roger will pose concentrate naturally on rural issues, for example whether the Government's proposals that future policy should ensure that 95% of people in rural areas live within 3 miles of a post office will be adequate. They estimate that about 3,000 out of a total adult population of 55,000 in Brecon & Radnorshire currently live more than 3 miles from a post office, meaning that even the current network probably does not meet the Government's criteria. They also want to gauge what impact any post office closures will have on local communities and other local businesses, such as shops, pubs and garages.