It didn’t get off to a good start when I entered the public consultation meeting on Friday to decide the future of Stockwell Post Office. The PR Man in the Suit smiled, and within his first sentence he was already talking the twaddle of:

“Local stakeholders.”

URGH.

It’s all about the customers, isn’t it?

ISN’T IT?

Apparently not. The Post Office needs to make some money, and preferably not in Stockwell. The twenty-minute or so walk away at Ferndale Road in Brixton is the Post Office solution for your hyperlocal dosh. The proposal is to ‘merge’ the two branches.

I always remember my very office job when two separate companies were merged. The P45 arrived in the post for all employees of the less than profitable side of the merger.

At least the PR Man in the Suit had the decency to carry out the folly of a public consultation.

I failed to see though how a hired room late on Friday afternoon is going to save Stockwell Post Office.

Two open tables were set up in the small space, each marshaled by an array of Post Office PR Men in Suits. The sessions were supposed to run from 4pm - 8pm. Ten minutes in and the job description for the PR Men had already shifted to include the carrier of more chairs.

The people of SW8 genuinely do care about the future of their Post Office. Perhaps it is to do with the geographical constraints of Sunny Stockwell? Unlike the political and economic power base of the borough down in Brixton, or the more affluent surrounds of Clap’ham, Stockwell has no central space.

Sure, this is being addressed right now with the proposal for a shared civic realm [OH LORDY] - but the Post Office, the tube opposite and the GLORY of Costcutter is currently the central defining feature for Stockwell.

Shut our Post Office and you may as well go and live in, well, you may as well go and live in Brixton or Clap’ham (and good luck with that one…)

This seems to be the plan from the PR Man in the Suit. I get confused these days as to what the Post Office actually entails. I tried to get this clarified on Friday afternoon, but the detail got a little lost on me at the end of a long working week.

We’re not talking about the privatised Royal Mail here - I *think* it’s the valuable counter services that many local people depend upon as they organise their everyday lives within their community.

The PR Man in a Suit helpfully explained how pressure is being put on the Post Office by those nice folk in central government. Branches need to close - ‘urban’ delivery [aha!] has to be within a mile radius of the area that it serves.

And just to prove this, a rather helpful clean cut looking map of Transpontonia was produced by the PR Man in the Suit.

“Where do you live?”

…he asked.

“South Lambeth Road”

…I replied.

The PR Man in the Suit sent to close merge Stockwell Post Office couldn’t find one of the major roads in the area on his map.

Like I said - it wasn’t the best of starts.

Having pointed out where I live, I was then guided across to Wandsworth Road and the sub-branch opposite Lambeth College. The public / private twaddle of the Post Office gets a little murky here.

It was explained that this was a private business, with the shop owner providing a public service for the Post Office.

That Mr Tony has a lot to answer for.

Never trust a PR Man in a Suit; especially so when he tells you that conclusive evidence exists to state that the little back counter buried away in a private shop is actually busier than the main Stockwell Post Office opposite the tube.

You sure, fella?

The conclusive evidence wasn’t at hand at the Stockwell Resource Centre on Friday afternoon. What was made available was the statement put out by the Post Office ahead of the consultation:

“We are proposing to merge Stockwell Crown Post Office into Ferndale Road Crown Post Office at 250 Ferndale Road, London, SW9 8BQ.

Our lease on the building at Stockwell is due to expire in June 2015, giving us the opportunity to review service provision in Lambeth.

We are satisfied from our review that Ferndale Road Crown Post Office has sufficient capacity to serve the additional customers that would use it following the merger.”

HA!

LOOK! Even the Brixton locals despise Ferndale Road. It is a place of eternal misery. Having walked twenty-five minutes down Stockwell Road to reach the branch, you then have to queue a further half an hour just to buy a second-class stamp.

And that’s the whole point of the merger. Buying stamps - and writing letters etc - is out. Welcome to the nu world of Post Office 2.0.

Self-service kiosks are promised for Brixton - TWO of them, as one of the PR Men in Suits let his mask slip and then outed himself as the Area Manager for Ferndale. The opening hours are expected to change as well.

Smells like a done deal to me.

Not so, according to the PR Man in a Suit. I pressed the question as to how my input will be listened to in the consultation. Is it worth me sitting down and giving up half an hour of my time, when I could be doing more valuable things such as walking down Stockwell Road towards the Brixton branch?

“5% of the mergers have been over-turned following the consultation”

…came back the claim.

FIVE PER CENT.

Never quote me the odds, Comrades.

And what of Clap’ham?

Investment bollocks, blah. blah, blah. A an even longer walk up the Clap’ham Road is not very appealing to the Bright Young (ish) Things of Stockwell, let alone those in the community that perhaps aren’t so mobile and genuinely rely upon the service.

More figures were then quoted. The Post Office at Stockwell apparently takes a hit of £1.88 for every £1 spent. 25% of all Post Offices need to close over the next 6-7 years. There will be no compulsory redundancies at Stockwell [DONE DEAL] - Ferndale will take on more staff.

We then heard how the parallel consultation for the closure merger of Kennington with… Walworth Road is also taking place simultaneously.

‘cos y’know - Walworth has always been part of Kennington, Comrades.

Stockwell is the poor partner in all of this. I returned back to the helpful clean cut looking map of Transpontonia for my closing comments. Stockwell was at the centre of the map, showing the one-mile radius, and how Ferndale Road and Clap’ham are supposedly within easy reach.

“Why not shift your radius boundaries so that Brixton is in the centre? Make the SW9 Comrades take in a walk to Stockwell? They might even find that they like it when they finally get here?”

As ever, Brixton is all dominant within the borough. It sucks you in, makes you queue for half an hour and then sends you back packing down Stockwell Road.

The consultation crap continues:

“The merger of these branches is part of our programme to transform and modernise the Post Office network to help create a network [ARF!] of branches that are modern, sustainable [URGH], profitable and no longer reliant on Government funding.”

Networks usually require a series of nodes. Stockwell is no longer even a node.

The local Labour Cllrs have started a petition to save the Post Office over here.

Handy timing, what with May 2014 coming up…

Plus here’s the link to complete the formal consultation. It closes on 11 March.

The Stockwell Labour petition contains the WORNG code. It should be 020008. The code given on the petition refers to Kennington.

*so* many local Labour petitions; *so* many Post Office threatened closures.

“Do you have any suggestions that could help us make the proposed Post Office move better? Please write in below.”

Withdraw the proposal.