Villagers say closure foregone conclusion
VILLAGERS have condemned a decision to close Duston Post Office as a foregone conclusion despite mounting a high-profile campaign to save the branch.
Post Office Limited announced yesterday that it was going ahead with plans to shut the Main Road outlet permanently as part of a wide-ranging review to streamline their national operation.
Several post offices have already been closed in Northampton, but the announcement that the Duston branch was planned to go provoked by far the biggest public outcry.
A public consultation was launched by Post Office Limited, and talks were held with members of the Public Sector Alliance and Northampton South Labour MP Tony Clarke, who were campaigning to keep the branch open.
Jill Goodyer, who runs Goodyer Travel Agents in Main Road, was involved in the campaign to save the post office, and helped collect a petition with almost 1,800 signatures.
The 54-year-old, who grew up in the village and now lives in Holmleigh Close, Duston, said: "We all thought it was a foregone conclusion, but we could not let it go without some sort of protest in the village.
"It seems as though they (Post Office Limited) were just going through the motions.
"I grew up in the village and I know how things used to be, there was a great community spirit. It is such a shame that the post office is going, and it will be awful for the community."
Martin Nash, who owns the Duston Gallery in Main Road, has used the post office daily to send his artwork across the globe as far afield as America and across Europe.
Mr Nash's parents, 77-year-old Joan and Bill Nash, aged 83, collect their pensions from the branch.
The 41-year-old artist, who lives in Scaldwell, said: "The post office has been vital for the business. Other shops such as the hardware store have closed down, and there have been fewer and fewer people coming to the village.
"I have had to rely on the internet more and more to sell my work.
"But it is the elderly people who I feel sorry for. I can get to the other post offices which are fairly close by, but that will not be the case for a lot of pensioners.
"I do feel that Post Office Limited were paying lip service to us, and that the branch was always going to close."
The post office in Duston will close for the last time on Tuesday, September 9. The sub-post master Allan Walden yesterday declined to comment.Falling number of customers was cause
THE closure of Duston Post Office comes in the wake of six other branches across the county which have already met the same fate.
The massive restructuring of the Post Office network across the nation will see around a third of the 9,000 urban outlets shut permanently.
Managers at Post Office Limited have maintained there is a need to restructure the service as too many offices in towns and cities are competing for too little business.
The Main Road branch was a vital facility for when Duston was a village completely divorced from Northampton itself.
But the growth of the town has seen another two outlets in Limehurst Square and in New Duston open up close by, and Old Duston has been swallowed up and is now part of Northampton borough.
Despite villagers' claims that the Duston closure was a foregone conclusion, Richard Hall, a spokesman for Post Office Limited, stressed this was not the case.
So far 250 outlets have been considered for closure nationally, and five have been saved from the axe following a public consultation.
Hopes had been raised that the Duston branch would also be spared after it emerged that plans for massive housing developments nearby had not been passed on to Post Office Limited.
But after studying the blueprints for building work on the former Timken site, at Upton, St Cripsin's Hospital and the Princess Marina site, the decision was taken to still close the Duston branch.
The construction work would not be finished until around 2007, and Mr Hall said that Post Office Limited would review the situation then to see if there was enough demand to open a branch again.
Paul Maisey, the area head for Post Office Limited, said: "Proposals to close post offices are not made without considerable research and discussion, so we are anxious that customers and all relevant organisations understand our rationale.
"The harsh reality is that many urban branches are struggling to survive because there are too many branches for the amount of business.
"In the case of Duston Post Office, a declining number of customers, increased running costs, and the prospect of even less business once the Department of Work and Pensions transfers benefit payments from passbooks to bank accounts, prompted the sub-post master to want to leave our business."
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