Crusader takes Post Office queues battle to High Court

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A campaigner has gone to the High Court in a one-man crusade against queues in post offices.

Angry customer Paul Bryant says he has had enough of growing queues – which he says have got worse since the Post Office shut smaller branches last year.

He says the problem has escalated since April 2003, when the Post Office abandoned a policy which set a maximum queuing time of five minutes.

He launched a legal challenge in the High Court in a bid to overturn the decision, which was made by the Post Office and upheld by the postal services commissioner, known as Postcomm, in 2005.

Mr Bryant, 35, of Beach Road, Southsea, said he was moved to act after he was stuck in a queue in Portsmouth's main post office in Slindon Street.

Customers had to wait so long that one distressed young disabled girl in the queue in front of him wet herself.

Mr Bryant said: 'I was aware that there was a queuing limit some time ago. Our local post office closed and I went into town to use the one in Slindon Street.

'There was a lady in the queue with her disabled daughter, in front of me. The girl was in distress and she had wet herself.

'It was that moment, the frustration in the girl's eyes, that made me think I had to do something about it.

'I looked into it more and more and thought this is totally wrong.

'They are closing post offices all over the country and not catering for the length of the queues when people are dispersed to other places.'

Mr Bryant's case is against the Post Office, Postcomm and the Royal Mail. His first attempt to get it heard in the High Court was dismissed by a judge – but he intend to go back because he feels he was not given enough time to make his case. He has been backed by fellow customers and by pensioners' groups, who say elderly people are suffering because of the length of the queues.

June Clarkson, secretary of the Portsmouth Pensioners' Association, said: 'The queues have been dreadful. The two post offices I use in Albert Road and Milton Market are small and, when there are more than 10 people there, people have to queue outside. It's that bad.

'All the pensioners I speak to have to pick and choose when it comes to deciding when to go.

'The queues are getting worse – it's an absolute disgrace.

'You don't just get pensioners queuing in the rain, I've seen mothers with buggies outside getting wet.'