Post Office Announcement Another Kick In The Teeth For Londoners - Teather

6.00.00am GMT Tue 19th Feb 2008

Local MP Sarah Teather is fighting to save local Post Offices

Local Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East Sarah Teather has vowed to lead the fight against Labour's Post Office Closures in Brent.

The Post Office have earmarked 169 London Post Offices for closure, one in every five outlets. This includes six Post Offices in Brent:

• Walm Lane (Cricklewood)

• Court Parade (Wembley)

• Roe Green (Kingsbury)

• Harrow Road (Kensal Green)

• St Raphael's Estate (Stonebridge)

• Hillrise (Stonebridge)

If the proposed closures go ahead Brent will be left with just 24 Post Offices, compared with 40 when Labour came to power.

Meanwhile, figures compiled by the Liberal Democrats show that, even before the latest cuts, London has less than half the number of post offices compared to the rest of the country. Comparing census data on the population with data from Postcomm on post offices revealed that in the UK as a whole, there is one post office for every 3860 people. In London that figure rises to over 8460, more than twice as many.

Local MP for Brent East and Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Enterprise Sarah Teather said:

"This latest Post Office closure announcement is another kick in the teeth for all those who value our local Postal services.

"Here in Brent we have already lost a quarter of our local Post Offices under Labour. This latest programme of cuts will hit the elderly and most vulnerable members of our community as well as hitting small businesses who rely on Post Offices for essential services.

"The consultation process is fundamentally flawed because it only asks people which Post Offices they want to close. We already have a second class service in London with half as many Post Offices per head as the rest of the UK. We need to keep all our current Post Offices.

"The Labour Government just don't seem to care about our community. Rather than shrinking the service in London even further, Labour should encourage the Post Office to grow the business by focusing on queuing times and improving service."