What is happening to the Post office?

Our local post office is part of the Co Op group.

I don’t think they make much, if any, profit.

Pleased it’s still there though. Useful for their bank sharing facilities, as we only have one bank branch in town now.

Our ‘Post Office’ is in Spar. Much better service - open 7 days a week. Also doubles up as a Bank.

Curtaintwitcher

I live in a large town in the North and am struggling to find a Post Office. My local one is now only open three days a week and when it is open, there is only one counter and a long queue. It is the same in the centre of town.

Is this happening all over the country or is it just in my local area?

The Post Office provides a public service; is there not a government body to step in and demand that they do the job properly?

Do you live near me?
We have the same problem, our local postmaster is rude and will not employ staff.
The queues are out of the door.

Happened around here from about 5 years ago.

No, we haven’t got that issue yet whee I am. I live in a market town, we’ve got a main post office in the CoOp which is open 6 days a week, and a small post office in a convenience store which is open the same hours. I’m realising we are lucky, because they are both really busy, so we’d struggle with less.

Post offices as we knew them are actually 4 entirely separate companies - and never the Twain shall meet.

We have three post offices nearest a mile away the others two miles away in different directions. They are all only serviced by one counter clerk and the queues are ridiculous.

I am on the SE and live in a market town with many villages around and our main post office has closed.
It’s a private business and no longer a public service.

I live in a town of 70,000 people. The main PO closed years ago and moved to a cramped counter in a corner of W H Smiths. Now they have closed we have no PO at all!

We used to have a Post Office in the village, closed several years ago causing problems for many. We have to travel several miles to get to one now and both are part of small supermarkets, to keep costs down no doubt.

Our post office now is in a small WHSmiths with long queues blocking the aisles for shoppers.

I'm really lucky, we still have a main post office situated in WH Smith's in our Market town. I also have a small sub post office 5 minutes away in my local Spar.

Our main post office closed years ago, since then it’s in WHSmith’s very rarely is there more than one person serving, as others have said long queues,very very frustrating especially at this time of year 🤦‍♀️

Our PO is in a small Tesco Express now.

Post is really bad here too. We don't get a delivery for days and then a load arrives on the same day

I live in a tiny village and a pop-up post office comes to the village hall one morning a week. The shop in the ext village (about 5 miles away) has a PO which is open all the hours that the shop is open ... 7am to 7pm 6 days a week. Sounds as though we are better served here in the middle of nowhere!

I live in a smallish town in the suburbs of London . All our banks and building society’s have closed and we are left with a Post Office with 4 tills in our large Pharmacy. It’s always busy understandably but the staff are great and very helpful as are the Pharmacy staff .

We have a really good PO in the next village but the queues are huge. We mostly use their online service for parcels now. It's brilliant.

I realise that not everyone can do that though.

After the dreadful scandal when post office operators were wrongly prosecuted, some committing suicide, others going to prison and not all receiving compensation as yet, I'm surprised anyone wants to do the job.

The most dreadful miscarriage of justice and no-one yet held accountable. The wrong people went to prison.

There are a couple within other shops near here. I haven't used a post office for years, what do people use them for?

My local Post Office is part of WHSmith - long queues, inadequate number of staff and sometimes shut for inexplicable reasons.

I must be really lucky then our P.O is in the Spar shop locally. Three counters seem to be always open and no queues. The staff are very helpful and friendly.

Ours are private and usually sell a few bits and pieces as well as the usual stamps. They also do photos for passports. All the shopping centres have them as well as several in local shopping strips . Some of them get long queues, depends on how busy the area is.

My nearest main post office is a taxi ride away and has long queues out the door, Fortunately they have a specific position for "business" which I use on the very few occasions I have gone there with parcels to ship. I now have a collection service at my home by Royal Mail for internet parcels.

The main post office in the centre of Newton Abbot closed down several years ago, causing great inconvenience to customers, and opened at the back of a grocery store much further along the street. Big queues and inconvenience don't seem to bother the authorities. The old post office is still standing there empty and neglected.
But I am lucky because there is a good post office/mini- market in the next village along from me, thank goodness.