Lib Dem Council Fighting to Save Sheffield's Post Offices

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 24th Oct 2008

Lib Dem Sheffield City Council and Post Office Limited met today to discuss the future of the 15 Post Offices in Sheffield due to close. Although the Council has been blocked from trying to save all the Post Offices, Lib Dems have been allowed to look into options of saving 8 of the Post Offices that will close.

The branches the Post Office will not allow the Council to even explore options for are: Deepcar, Derbyshire Lane, Grimesthorpe, Loxley, and Silverhill. The Council is due to hear the status of two more branches next week.

Councillor Paul Scriven, Leader of Sheffield City Council, said: "I'm deeply disappointed that the Council has been blocked in its bid to save Post Offices for some of our local communities. However, I'm hopeful that all is not lost as we have been given the go ahead to enter into discussions with Post Office Ltd to try to do something for the other branches."

"Today's meeting was very useful, and we are now much clearer about what options are actually available to us. We now have to have a realistic look at what we can do to retain vital services where we can, although we are very much constrained by Post Office criteria and funding issues. We'll be working really hard over the coming weeks and months to do as much as we can to find local solutions for local people. However, I'm aware that our hard work for these communities will come as no consolation to those areas where there is no prospect of their Post office being saved."

The Council will now work with Post Office Limited to look at different options for the other areas. Based on the experience of other authorities, the Council estimates that it will take around six months to develop viable long-term solutions, as has been the case in Essex which is an example of best practice. Even then it may not be possible to find a solution for all the branches. This is because there are a number of hurdles to overcome including factors such as Post Office criteria, financial issues, legal issues, and finally commercial agreements to work through. The Council is not able to run Post Offices itself so would need to work with third parties to broker solutions.

Looking ahead, there will be another meeting of Council officers and Post Office Limited within the next two weeks to start detailed discussions about options for retaining some form of Post Office service in the other areas. A key part of this meeting will be to examine in detail the financial information which Post Office Ltd has agreed to share for each branch and what happens next will heavily depend on that information.