Date: 11 January 2008

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone.  I hope you had a peaceful and enjoyable Christmas, however you were celebrating.

Now that the New Year is here, we are all encouraged to think about what resolutions we will make to improve our lives in 2008. Maybe it’s to lose weight, stop smoking, take more exercise – whatever your resolution, I hope you are having success in keeping it.

One of my resolutions is to fight to keep our remaining Post Offices in Staffordshire Moorlands open.  In 1997, there were 35 Post Offices in the Moorlands. That number has fallen by 12 to date and another four are under threat of closure. That would leave us just 19 Post Offices for the whole of Staffordshire Moorlands. That might be acceptable in a city area where people live close together and the distances between Post Offices are not large.  In a  large, rural community like ours, where many people live in isolated areas with large distances between them and their nearest Post Office, it’s not enough.

This Labour Government holds the record for closing Post Offices faster than any other.  More than 4,000 sub-Post Offices have closed under Labour since they came to power in 1997– that’s almost 10 a week.  Now the Government has announced that it will close a further 2,500 branches. By the time of the next General Election, Gordon Brown will have been responsible for closing down a third of the entire Post Office network.

But all is not lost if we fight to save our Post Offices.  Throughout 2008, the Government will decide which Post Offices to shut.  They will run a series of consultations across the country. The consultation in Staffordshire Moorlands will take place in March and will last for six weeks. I am determined that we will show Labour that we need to keep all our remaining Post Offices.  I am organising a petition to “Keep Our Post Office Open” that we can present to Gordon Brown before any final decisions are taken to show the strength of feeling.  You will start to see copies of the petition locally in newspapers and street stalls in the next few weeks.