AN appeal by people in West Devon and East Cornwall to save their local post offices has definitely made a difference to Government strategy, a Tavistock postmaster this week claimed. The Government announced recently that 2,500 post offices must go, citing figures that 800 of the smallest rural post offices served just 16 customers a week and cost the taxpayer £17 per visit in subsidies. Ravi Jhangiani, who runs Tavistock post office, backed the recent 'Heart of the Community' campaign which collected more than three million signatures nationally to lobby the Government to keep post offices open. Mr Jhangiani, president of the Plymouth, North and East Cornwall branch of the National Federation of Sub Postmasters, said: 'We are convinced the minds of Government were changed slightly by the campaign that we organised. 'At least the Government is now acknowledging there must be some kind of service. Some time ago rumours abounded that up to 7,000 post offices were in danger of closure — now the figure has been announced at 2,500.' His federation said the Government's proposed post office package provided a welcome first step to arrest the decline of the post office network. But the federation remains unconvinced the package will draw a line under difficulties faced by the Post Office and bring about the NFSP's goal of a sustainable national network of post offices. Following months of campaigning, the federation hailed Government plans to maintain the Post Office card account and to develop a successor product as a 'victory for the nation and for common sense'. Mr Jhangiani's federation conducted a survey outside local post offices, including one in Mary Tavy. He said 99% of people wanted to keep their local service. 'With many post offices also acting as the only shop in the village, it is a lifeline to the community and it is difficult to see if the post office side closes how the shop side service could be maintained,' he said. The Government is proposing to have mobile post offices or even site them part-time in village pubs or churches, but Mr Jhangiani said this was far from ideal. He said: 'A mobile post office cannot serve the same purpose as a permanent one; by its very nature it could offer only a limited service and it certainly could never replace the heart of the community.' He said isolated rural post offices could act to offer more banking services to add to post offices' existing ones. Talks between the NFSP, the Post Office and Barclays, Lloyds and TSB and the Co-op have been taking place although Nat West and HSBC are yet to be drawn in. Mr Jhangiani said: 'Sub post masters' life savings and livelihoods are tied up in these businesses. When it suits the Government we are a businessman and employer, but also when it suits them, we are their agents. 'We don't mind competition but competition should be fair.' In a few years post offices have seen their customer base go down from 12 million to four and a half million. Mr Jhangiani said realistically, post offices could no longer be stand-alone businesses, but his fellow members would fight 'tooth and nail' to survive, both for themselves and as a service to the public.
