LETTER: Campaign goes on to save Haworth Post Office

Any conclusions to the meeting were foregone ones, the tenor of it being basically that 'Haworth only needs one post office and it’s going to be the Co-op’. There was a powerpoint presentation – we asked to be sent this, but no one has actually received anything – in which there was completely pointless data. Supplying graphs with only one axis is pretty breathtaking. We have asked for proper data to be provided, but so far none has been provided. POL persistently asks us to come up with 'sustainable solutions' – but this is impossible when we cannot have the slightest hint of how our post office is performing.

We were made to feel that we should be grateful for the sop currently on offer – that of having a mobile PO counter for two hours a week at an as yet undetermined venue. This simply will not address the very specific needs of the community on Haworth Main Street. Business owners and the Bronte Parsonage Museum won’t save up all their parcels for that small time period – and if they did, how would these parcels, which number in the hundreds every week, be transported by Post Office Ltd? Instead, these customers will simply use a courier service. The loss of their business to POL will far outweigh the relatively small sum it would take to keep the Main Street Post Office going.

Elderly people can’t always get to a mobile PO counter during a small time period: what if their pension day is not on that day? What if they are ill? What if the weather is bad? So many of the elderly who live around Main Street go to the post office every day – to pick up a paper, buy a stamp, get cash, collect their pension but also to see a friendly face. Last week a colleague was chatting to an old lady in the PO queue (there’s always a queue, by the way) who told them that if the PO closed, her life would simply not be worth living. This is not hyperbole. It is a simple fact that our Main Street Post Office is a vital part of many people’s lives. I write this having just seen another old lady making her way to our PO on two sticks, wearing her slippers. People are able to do this now. Soon they may not be able to. There certainly won’t be time for a friendly chat in the two-hours-a-week time space.

POL would dismiss the above paragraph as mere sentimentality. But perhaps this will attract their attention – Bradford is on the shortlist of four cities bidding to become the City of Culture for 2025. We are the odds-on favourites at the moment and the decision will be announced in early May. Becoming a City of Culture has had an absolutely transformative effect on cities such as Hull and Liverpool. The same will happen to Bradford if we win. At a recent forum on tourism in the Worth Valley, a representative from the Bradford bid emphasised how Haworth will be a fundamental part of the City of Culture benefits. There are more than a quarter of a million visitors a year to Haworth now; imagine how many more will come. There’s a sequel to the classic film The Railway Children coming out in July this year. I can’t promise that we shall relive that iconic ‘Daddy, my Daddy!’ moment, but I think I can say that Haworth will be in the cultural spotlight and that visitor numbers will increase. POL is going to look a bit silly if people arrive on Main Street to find the PO that enabled the Bronte sisters to send their manuscripts out to the world has closed down in favour of a counter in the Co-op a long way from the cobbles.

Turning to the PO counter in the Co-op. We know that the PO counters in all three of our local Co-ops are not always open when they should be. We've shown POL photographs to convince them of this. But apparently documentary evidence is insufficient: a formal complaint has to be lodged with POL in order for them to believe that we haven't been busy on Photoshop. The fact is that people don't do that. They go into the Co-op, they see that yet again there's a sign up on the PO counter saying it's closed, they heave a sigh, and they go to Haworth Main Street PO instead. After all that, they can't be bothered to go through the rigmarole of complaining on the POL website. The staff in Haworth Co-op in particular are not at all happy about having to run a PO counter. If the brilliantly, professionally-run Main Street PO is closed it will be gone forever. If the Co-op decides the PO counter game in Haworth isn't worth the candle, we shall have no PO of any sort (except the Toytown two hours a week option, possibly).

May we ask your readers to continue to support Haworth Main Street Post Office both by using it and by writing to Nick Read, Post Office Group Chief Executive, Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Street, London EC2Y 9EQ?

Lydia MacKinnon, Save Haworth Main Street Post Office Campaign

* Laura Tarling, for Post Office Ltd, says: "Like many retailers, the Post Office is operating in a very challenging economic climate. When providing services to communities we must ensure that our resources are directed to delivering maximum benefits for all customers across the network, prioritising areas where there is unmet need.

"Last year we opened a new, permanent branch that operates from the Co-op store inn Station Road, Haworth – Station Road Post Office. This branch was opened as a permanent replacement to the Haworth branch that provides services at the top of the hill in Main Street.

"We of course appreciate the historic location of the Main Street branch and in our consultation with the community last year, there was feedback that merging the two branches would impact elderly and vulnerable customers that use Main Street. We’d like to make clear that the branch on Station Road is fully accessible for disabled people and has onsite car parking facilities.

"Post Office met the Save Haworth Post Office Campaign group last November and again in March, along with other local stakeholders, to listen to their feedback and we asked them to share their ideas for sustainable options for Post Office services in the Main Street area. We also put forward suggestions for an outreach service near the top of the hill as part of these discussions, to provide services to vulnerable customers in addition to the new Co-op Post Office.

"No final plans for the post office have been agreed and we continue to liaise with local stakeholders."