Post Offices

On Friday and Saturday Copeland Council's Economic Development committee, of which I am a member, sat for two days hearing evidence about the Post Office closure proposals for Copeland.

The evidence we heard demonstrated that the issues around post office closures are more complex than many people might imagine, but we also heard enough evidence to build a strong case that in several respects the proposals unfairly disadvantage the Copeland area

For example -

* Many post offices are not fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA): the Copeland proposals target for closure an extraordinary proportion of those post offices which are, including several offices on which both the Post Office through disability access grants and the owners have recently invested large sums on disabled access.

* The overall target fot the proportion of post offices to close is 18%. This is supposed to be applied equitably accross the country. Yet the proportion of offices proposed for closure in Copeland, one of the most remote if not the most remote district in England is much higher at 25%. This is grossly unreasonable.

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