GOVERNMENT U-TURN ON POST OFFICE CARD ACCOUNT COMES TOO LATE FOR LOST ST ALBANS BRANCHES

11.58.00am GMT Mon 17th Nov 2008

Sandy Walkington, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for St Albans, has welcomed the Government's U-turn on tendering the Post Office Card Account. "This will give some encouragement that the continuous salami-slicing of local branches locally and nationally under both Labour and Conservative governments may be slowed or even halted.

"Handing over the payment of pensions and benefits from post offices to a private company could have been the kiss of death for up to 6,000 more post office branches nationwide and up to a dozen more locally. We would have had hardly any local post offices left, and they would have to widen the pavements in St Peters Street to deal with the queues," Sandy said.

"But this overdue decision is still small consolation to all the customers of the six local branches in St Albans district which have been closed this year against widespread opposition. And we can only wonder how much the threat of the loss of the Post Office Card Account business drove this year's numbers game on those post office closures.

"This is a U-turn that should never have had to happen in the first place. The Government should have realised the importance of post offices to communities and awarded the new contract to the network without these months of delay. We now need to see another U-turn. The Government must stop putting pressure on pensioners and benefit claimants to get their cash paid through the banks. People should have a choice.

"Post Office branches have the potential to be local contact points for a far wider set of government and community services. They provide a social service. In the long run it will be far more expensive to close them and then find we have to open new local service points for community and government services. The whole post office branch closure saga has just showed muddled thinking which could end up costing us far more than any notional 'efficiency savings'," Sandy concluded.