RESIDENTS are being urged to attend a consultation event tomorrow – Monday, February 18 – in a bid to save the historic Broad Street Post Office.
The event will take place at Wokingham Methodist Church in Rose Street from 4pm and is a chance to meet with Post Office bosses about their plan to close the Broad Street Post Office and open a kiosk in the Market Place branch of WHSmith.
As The Wokingham Paper revealed in our February 14 edition, WHSmith have already started the recruitment process even though the consultation on the proposals run until the end of the month.
This prompted Cllr Philip Mirfin, the executive member for regeneration on Wokingham Borough Council, to call the consultation process a sham.
And Sir John Redwood, the Wokingham MP, is also unhappy.
He told The Wokingham Paper: “WH Smith should not be advertising positions in a possible Post Office within their new store while a consultation is underway. Many customers wish to object to the closure of the existing Post Office and are offended by this premature move.”
Now, Labour councillor Andy Croy is planning a protest outside the customer forum.
The party has been running a petition against the closure since November, when the plans were first announced, and it has already amassed 5,500 signatures.
He said: “The Post Office going through the motions of consulting. I’m really angry about this whole operation. It was always part of a plan to privatise it all: Post Office and Royal Mail.”
The protest will, he hoped, be a show of support to the existing Broad Street Post Office and he hoped that residents would also come along to the Customer Forum and express their unhappiness over the plan to shut the Broad Street branch.
“We will be outside the church to let people know something is going on there. People should go along [to the forum] and let the Post Office know their views,” he said.
“Turning up will make a difference. It will send a real message to the Post Office and a real message to John Redwood. He’s cruising on this, he should stop seeing local directors who will fob him off. He needs to raise the issue in Parliament.”
Cllr Croy added: “The Post Office are just going through the motions of consultation. They’re not interested [in Wokingham residents’ views]. They want to say they’ve done it [held a consultation]. It’s not even a tick-box exercise.”
The Customer forum runs from 4pm to 7.30pm on Monday, February 18 at Wokingham Methodist Church in Rose Street. If you can’t make the event, you can take part in the Post Office consultation online at www.postofficeviews.co.uk
