Do we really need so many post offices?

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Thousands of post offices in the UK could be forced to shutin the next couple of years due to pay cuts, according to the National Federation of SubPostmasters (NFSP).

They say this would be devastating for the local communities who rely heavily on their post office for banking and paying bills.
But are post offices really still at the heart of local communities, or are they fast becoming obsolete?

My own local post office closed down just a few months ago. And while I was at first indignant that yet another fried chicken shop had been allowed to open in its place, when I thought about it I couldn’t actually remember the last time I had used the post office for anything.

Jobs that would have previously required a trip to the post office, such as banking, topping up mobile phones, purchasing travel insurance and paying car tax, can now be done online.

This means instead of rushing down to the post office in your lunch break and queuing for an hour to pay your gas bill, you can log onto the internet from the comfort of your own home, or work, and pay in seconds.

However, the difference is I have internet at home and work for a website. What about those people who don’t have the internet or have never been taught how to use it?

It is also true that many people just don’t feel comfortable paying bills and banking online, and worry about security issues.
And as I know all too well, your internet connection may not always be reliable and servers can often go down at the most inconvenient of times.

What's more, when it comes to mail, although private sector companies such as TNT, Business Post and Home Delivery Network have thrived in recent years by offering a perhaps more efficient and cheaper service, almost all post is still ultimately delivered by Royal Mail. And during the strikes last year it became all the more evident just how much businesses and the general public still rely on the Royal Mail.

Therefore, if post offices start closing down what will this mean for our post?

So, should the government make more effort to ensure post offices have enough work to do and can continue to provide front line services for consumers?

Or should we just accept that as the need for post offices becomes less in today’s society, it is inevitable that some of the 11,500 post offices currently in existence in the UK will close?

And what about the thousands of jobs that will be lost if post offices do close?

What do you think? Should more be done to safeguard their future?

Or is it time for a change? Is the post office using a long standing and well respected brand as a cloak to hide uncompetitive products and poor service?