Harrogate Borough Council is set to debate plans to move Harrogate’s Crown Post Office on Cambridge Road into WHSmith on Cambridge Street as a franchised operation.
The move will see the same services offered, but an extension to opening hours.
A special motion tabled by Council Leader Richard Cooper and Deputy Leader Graham Swift reads:
This Council opposes the plans to move the post office on Cambridge Road in to WHSmith on Cambridge Street and downgrade it from a Crown Post Office to a franchise.
The Council will write to the Chief Executive of Post Office Ltd and to the Chief Executive of WHSmith making clear its opposition to the proposal. Further, the Council will use its best endeavours to encourage partners to oppose the plans through the Post Office’s formal consultation procedure.
The motion follows on from a campaign launched by Harrogate’s Member of Parliament Andrew Jones.
Councillor Cooper said:
As well as being Council Leader my ward includes Harrogate town centre. So I know how much people value the services offered by the post office and the convenience of the current location.
To downgrade that established and well-used Crown Post Office to a franchise on the first floor of WHSmith would be a bit of a kick in the teeth for Harrogate people who have loyally supported the post office in the decades it has been on Cambridge Road.
I want the Post Office to think again and drop the plans.
The debate will take place at the next scheduled Council meeting on Wednesday 5 December. The deadline for the Post Office consultation is 19 December. To meet that deadline the Mayor has decided that the motion will be debated on the day rather than deferred for a report to a future meeting as is usual practice.
It’s a privately owned business. Instead of worrying about something the council have no control over try sorting out the endless congestion of traffic or the number of tramps wandering around the town begging
Do remember that the Council and the general public (the customers), have a role in influencing Post Office and WH Smith. WHS have a contract to provide 100 post offices, but can’t they do better than upstairs or up an escalator? Try going upstairs pushing a rollator.
Trouble is – Royal Mail and Post Office are expensive businesses in decline, continuing on from the disruptive industrial action(s) in previous decades. They aren’t competing with the more efficient and/ or cherry-picking foreign-owned businesses which offer bulk mail and parcel deliveries via self-employed drivers (etc.). This deprives the post offices of business.
The post office needs to be in a smaller ground floor shop close to the bus station, in anticipation of people getting older and personal transport becoming less favoured. Somewhere like the existing Carphone premises.