PO closures will affect businesses

Post offices in Laxton, Brant Broughton and Epperstone will shut as part of the national closure programme, it was confirmed this week.

All three were earmarked for closure after the government told the Post Office it must close 2,500 of its 14,500 offices to save money.

The clerk to Laxton Parish Council, Mr Ken Shepherd, said they were disgusted by the decision.

He said closing the post office would rip the heart out of the village and saw the closures as a tax on the countryside.

Mr Shepherd said villagers were not listened to during the six-week consultation process, when a public meeting was held in the village hall and letters of opposition were sent to the Post Office and the government with a petition against the closures.

“They said everybody had to be within three miles of a post office, but the nearest post offices in Tuxford and New Ollerton are more than three miles away,” he said.

Mr Shepherd said 30 businesses that operated from the village would be hit by the closure.

“They will have to go out of the village now to use a post office, which will be expanding everybody’s carbon footprint, something the government wants to cut down on.

“There is also a high percentage of elderly people living in Laxton who will be affected.”

Mr Shepherd said there was a poor bus service, making it difficult for people without transport to get to the nearest post offices.

He said the village shop, from which the post office is run, was expected to remain open.

Former showjumper Mrs Pamela Dunning (59) runs Brant Broughton Post Office in a converted blacksmith’s forge.

She will now have to run another business from the premises, which she owns, to make a living but did not yet know what she was going to do.

Mrs Dunning, who is also a member of the parish council, has run the post office for five years but took it over as her own business in January.

Brant Broughton Post Office is one of 11 in the East Midlands that will be replaced with an outreach service from another post office in the area.

There will be a mobile service for five hours a week, but Mrs Dunning said she was unsure who would provide it.

She said the village would be seriously affected by the closure, particularly the large number of pensioners who did not drive.

The nearest post offices are at Leadenham and Carlton-le-Moorland, more than three miles away.

Mrs Dunning said the roads were too dangerous to walk along and there was a virtually non-existent bus service.

She said the Post Office had not taken into account the people who live in the village.

“The post office isn’t just a post office, it is a community centre. They are taking everything away from us.”

The district councillor for Epperstone, Mr Roger Jackson, said he was very disappointed with the decision and feared there were more closures to come.

He said: “The post office is an organisation that provides a service, like the health service or education.

“The government should be providing this service for local people. It will be greatly missed.”