Blythe Road Post Office to close in March

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Residents react with a 'mixture of shock, disbelief and anger'

This week the closure of the last Post Office in London W14 has been announced by the Government. The move comes despite specific promises to Hammersmith & Fulham Councillor Greg Hands as recently as September 2004 to keep it open.

In its newsletter, Sinclair Road Residents Association (SRRA) reacted with a "mixture of shock, disbelief, and anger".

Announced in a short, three-paragraph letter from Government run Post Office Ltd, the closure will make London W14 the first London postal district to be left entirely without a post office.

W14 includes West Kensington, Brook Green and Olympia, principally in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham. For over a year, the current Blythe Road Post Office operators, an elderly Indian couple – Mr & Mrs Chandi – have served the entirety of W14, a population of some 48,000 residents.

The Post Office will close on or before 30th March 2005 and will be replaced with two counters at the back of a Cost Cutters on nearby Hammersmith Road.

Not only is the Chandis’ livelihood threatened, but a vital public service for 48,000 local residents is being effectively removed. Coming on top of the Government’s drive to close 3,000 urban post offices, the most disturbing feature of the closure is that it comes on top of the Government-inspired “Network Reinvention Programme.”

The move comes in stark contrast to a letter from the Post Office to local Councillor Greg Hands dated 3rd September 2004. The Post Office stated that: “Having reviewed the business levels at the PO: Blythe Road, we are satisfied that the branch has sufficient counter provision to cope with the increase in business as a result of Network Reinvention closures.”

The Post Office itself conceded in its most recent branch performance assessment for January that the Blythe Road Post Office was rated at 97% and given a 1+ top rating.

Cllr Greg Hands, who has met with the Chandis five times in the last two years to try to save their post office, hit out at the Government’s plans: “I am shocked and amazed at this move. Since the news became public, I have been inundated with calls and emails from local residents. Four months ago the Government-run Post Office insisted that they had no plans to close this last remaining W14 branch. Now they want a half-hearted replacement at the appropriately named ‘Cost Cutters’. West Kensington people have had enough of the lies and deceit from Labour over Post Office closures, and we will fight this move very hard indeed.”

January 30, 2005