is the Govt trying to kill the Post Office off?

[blythburgh]

In villages up and down the country there is a shop and Post Office combined. The money from the Post Office means that the shop is viable. People go in to use the Post Office and often buy unplanned stuff.

But more and more the Govt. is saying you cannot do that via the Post Office. At one time all pensions and benefit payments could be in person at the Post Office or straight into the bank. Now they go straight into our bank account. We can renew our car licence at the Post Office but soon it will have to be done online.

The Post Office accused Postmasters of stealing, they were taken to court and many of them lost their business, their home and their reputation. For years after they knew it was the software they did not make sure the innocent Postmasters got a pardon.

[Sarah]

In this case, I don't expect it's malevolence by the government, more the wheels of progress moving forward and the need for greater efficiency. I find there are still enough services available at a Post Office for queues to persist most times I visit a town centre branch. Thankfully, I don't have to do that very often anymore, as a corner shop newsagents nearby also started to provide Post Office services a couple of years ago, so I usually go there instead these days.

The problems with Horizon wrongful prosecutions sounded like they were rooted in almost unbelievable levels of incompetence, arrogance, belligerence, distrustfulness, mismanagement, etc; although again I doubt it was any kind of deliberate plot to reduce the number of Post Office outlets.

I know of one location that has a Post Office sharing premises with a pizza restaurant. It had previously been at the back of a large newsagents. That closed, the vacant space was taken up by the restaurant and the Post Office stayed regardless... how about that! I presume they operate separate opening hours and have at least a partition between them, but I've never seen inside. Found a photo... looks like there are separate doorways, so perhaps an internal wall now too!

[blythburgh]

But in a small village it helps to keep shop and post office viable if you get people in to do things they are now forced to do online instead