Lancing and Sompting Post Offices under threat

POST OFFICE CLOSURES THREATENS COMMUNITIES

Campaign meetings organized by Tim Loughton MP
Saturday 1 December 2007. Click here for more details.

The sub-Post Offices in Mill Road, North Lancing, South Street in South Lancing and Bowness Avenue in Sompting have all been targetted for closure by the Post Office.

The claimed reasoning behind this is "Customer numbers are falling, customer habits are changing and many of the services that have traditionally been offered by the Post Office are now available elsewhere". (Post Office Network Change Programme leaflet).

What this policy fails to recognise is that Post Offices are an essential part of the community. If they close, this will adversly affect neighbouring shops. Sompting lost the Busticle Lane Post Office in the last round of closures - and the Bowness Avenue Post Office was cited as a suitably close alternative. Closure of this will rob Sompting of its last remaining Post Office. It is unacceptable in this day and age that a community the size of Sompting should be without a Post Office. Residents - especially the elderly, do not want to have to make the trek into Lancing to queue for hours at the main Post Office.

We should ask the question "why has the government allowed the key services that the Post Office provides to be made available elsewhere, without making provision to ensure the survival of the Post Office?" Why, for example, can we not get our vehicle tax from our local sub-Post Office? It does not make sense to take away the key business of the Post Office, and then complain that the Post Office is loosing money!

The situation in North and South Lancing is just the same. Here we have two large communities that will be deprived of local access to Post Office services. These Post Offices are key to their local communities.

Further information:

     BBC News Website
     Post Office Website
     Post Office Area Plan for Sussex

Campaign Trail:

Sign the petition to save the Post Offices:

Campaign march from Bowness Avenue to Lancing Post Office Friday 16 November. Pictures here: