Tuesday 19 August 2014

Request for temporary Perth Road Post Office arrangements : an update

Further to the recent request made by myself and the City Council's Chief Executive to Post Office Limited about the possibility of temporary facility in Perth Road during the September closure period when modernisation work is being carried out at the Perth Road Post Office Branch, I spoke with the Post Office's Stakeholder Manager for Scotland last Friday about this and was advised yesterday as follows :
Thank you for your time on the phone on Friday.
I appreciate your concerns regarding Perth Road Post Office closure for refurbishment and would like to assure you that we have made every effort to keep the closure period at Perth Road to an absolute minimum considering the amount of refurbishment work to be carried out.  As discussed, there are alternative Post Office branches which can be accessed within a reasonable distance of Perth Road branch therefore in this case a temporary service would not be a possibility.  A temporary service is normally set up when there is to be a prolonged closure of a branch or if the nearest alternative branch is a considerable distance away and takes quite some time to implement.
The planned refurbishments will result in a much improved customer experience with longer opening hours and a new more modern branch. The aim of our modernisation programme is to enable the Post Office to invest in and ensure the long term sustainability of the current branch network and I am sure this investment and subsequent improvement in Perth Rd branch will be welcomed by our customers.
We do understand that there may be some elderly or less able customers who may be more inconvenienced than others while the branch is closed and we apologise for any inconvenience which may be experienced however we do notify customers in advance of the closure in order to allow them to make alternative arrangements during this period.
The Post Office Website www.postoffice.co.uk provides information on products and services which may be helpful for customers.
I have responded as follows :
...whilst the modernisation is excellent news, it is disappointing that there will be no temporary service given the number of elderly people who will find the distance to alternative Post Offices a challenge.   
The City Council did provide a temporary library service in a nearby church hall when a similar situation affected the local library last year and its is therefore disappointing that Post Office Limited could not consider this.