Council backs protest over Farm Lane Post Office closure plan
by Hammersmith and Fulham Press Office
08/05/2007
Branch set to move to WH Smith will be the twelfth to go locally in recent years
H&F Council is backing local residents who are reeling from the news that yet another post office branch is to close – less than a year after the Hammersmith Broadway branch was shut down.
The branch in Farm Lane, Fulham, is to transfer to a WH Smith’s store in North End Road as part of a controversial national drive to merge 70 post office outlets with the retail chain by next summer.
Post Office Ltd is due to announce a six-week consultation shortly – but on the type of service at the chain store not on whether the move should happen. H&F Council is holding a public meeting to discuss the closure plan at 7.00pm on Monday 25 June at Fulham Library exhibition hall, 598 Fulham Road.
Resident Tom Butler, who helps to run three local pensioners’ clubs and is a member of H&F Pensioners’ Forum, said, “I’m not a pensioner myself but I work with a lot of older people and I go to this post office to collect my mother’s pension for her every week. The older people look at it like a social club – they like to have a chat with other pensioners and see a friendly face at the counter.
The North End Road branch of WH Smith is small and they will have a job to fit the post office in there. WH Smith’s customers and post office customers are both going to lose out as far as I can see. There should be a public meeting so people can have their say but it looks like they have already made their minds up.”
Hammersmith Broadway Post Office also moved to a branch of WH Smith in King’s Mall – taking it further away from the bus and tube stations - despite a petition of more than 1,000 residents condemning the closure. Farm Lane is the 12th recent post office branch to go, following other closures in North End Road, Lillie Road, Blythe Road, Brackenbury Road, Wood Lane, 318 Uxbridge Road, Bloemfontein Road, St Ann’s Road, 349 Fulham Palace Road and Richmond Way.
Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, Hammersmith & Fulham Council leader, said, "Post Office customers and WH Smith’s customers will get the worst of both worlds – with services being crammed into a small retail outlet. This is another severe blow for residents, following so soon after the Hammersmith Broadway branch closure and a relentless tide of other branches shutting down. We will be calling on the Post Office to reconsider this short-sighted move.”
H&F Council and H&F Pensioners’ Forum will be formally objecting to the latest branch closure plan.
Post Office spokeswoman Melanie Corfield said the move was “a commercial decision” and that a consultation on how the proposed service would run from WH Smith’s, in North End Road, would begin in the next few weeks.
In the mean time, local people wanting to make representations to the Post Office can download a petition here or write to Phillippa Wright, National Consultation Manager, Post Office Ltd, c/o – National Consultation Team, PO Box 2060, Watford WD18 8ZW.
