FOUR post offices shut their doors to customers for the final time as the Post Office’s reforms to safeguard its future operation kicked into gear in Bromley. A further seven post offices will be closed permanently by the end of September. Many customers will face a longer journey to their nearest office which will hit the elderly and infirm hardest. Reporter looks at why the closures are happening and how they will affect people.

The Post Office calls its programme of closures its Network Reinvention. It has asked sub-postmasters who run smaller branches if they want to continue or bow out with a handsome payment.

About three quarters of all post offices are franchises rather than being owned by Royal Mail. According to the Post Office, more sub-postmasters are keen to buy out of their business than it wants to let go.

One sub-postmaster in the borough reportedly even asked his MP not to launch a campaign to save his post office because he wanted to take the money. The franchisees are offered a payment that equals 28 months pay for running their post office.

Despite the dozen closures that have started in the area, Post Office Ltd has committed itself to the target of 95 per cent of customers living within a mile of a post office.

But a councillor for Penge says that many people have to travel more than a mile to their nearest post office since the branch in Croydon Road shut, in August).

Cllr John Getgood (Lab, Penge & Cator) said: “They’ve left people with very long and awkward journeys to post offices. People will be expected to go to either Penge or Sydenham and both of those are extremely crowded.”

Bromley Council is bitterly opposed to all the closures, warning that they will strip away a layer of community life in the affected areas.

Council leader, Cllr Stephen Carr (Cons, Bromley Common & Keston), said that Post Office Ltd was failing in its social duty to provide local post offices.

He said: “We’re disappointed at such a wide range of closures across the borough in addition to closures that have happened in the past few years.

“When people have their local post office, they remain independent, particularly elderly people, and all of a sudden they become a little bit isolated.”

Cllr Carr said that more smaller post offices should be cross-subsidised from the success of high street branches, which had long queues of customers.

People living in the Hayes area have to travel to West Wickham since the Coney Hall branch followed in the footsteps of the former Hayes post office and closed.

Cllr Neil Reddin (Cons, Hayes & Coney Hall) said that there were often long queues at the West Wickham branch and that the only nearby alternative was Keston, which could only be easily reached by car.

He said: “The elderly are the ones who are going to suffer particularly.”

Several businesses that had set up in Coney Hall because of the nearby post office would also be affected, he said.

In Petts Wood, elderly and disabled people will bear the brunt of the closure of the Queens Way post office.

Peter Varley, chairman of Petts Wood and District Residents’ Association, said: “I think people will be very concerned with the number of closures. It probably means that the remaining post offices will be that much more busy.”

The Post Office said that all closures followed a six week period of consultation during which the views of customers and their elected representatives, including their MP, were sought in line with a code of practice agreed with the consumer watchdog for postal services, Postwatch.