Post office joy for Sheffield suburb

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A POST office which was once one of Sheffield's busiest is set to reopen after a long campaign nine months after it was unexpectedly closed.
Residents and councillors in Darnall were joined by their MP Clive Betts in the fight to find a new site for the branch, which shut last August.

Now community development organisation Darnall Forum has offered to house the facility in its StaniforA POST office which was once one of Sheffield's busiest is set to reopen after a long campaign nine months after it was unexpectedly closed.
Residents and councillors in Darnall were joined by their MP Clive Betts in the fight to find a new site for the branch, which shut last August.

Now community development organisation Darnall Forum has offered to house the facility in its Staniforth Road offices, just a few hundred yards from the old branch in Main Road.

Sheffield Council said: "An application has been submitted to Post Office Ltd. If successful, a compulsory 12-month consultation period must be observed when reopening in new premises.

"It is likely that the service will be in a position to reopen in late summer or early autumn 2010."

Clive Betts, MP for Sheffield South East, who helped the forum liaise with Post Office bosses to discuss its plans to reopen, said: "It's great news. Darnall was one of Sheffield's busiest branches and should never have closed. I think the forum has done an excellent job."

Sheffield Council's opposition Labour group leader Coun Jan Wilson said: "Well done to the Darnall Forum and its chief executive Neil Bishop, who have got stuck in to ensure the branch can get back up and running."

But she added that the Forum itself had been in danger of closing after Sheffield Council's ruling Lib Dems cut its grant.

The agency was saved after the Labour-dominated East Community Assembly voted to provide funding to cover its costs.

Coun Wilson added that she was disappointed the Lib Dems did not offer cash from its £500,000 fund to reopen two other post office branches at Nether Green and Norfolk Park - closed by the Post Office in 2008 and which remain shut because the council cannot find anyone to run them.

But the Lib Dems said Government rules meant they were unable to intervene with funding where the Post Office wanted to keep branches open, as in Darnall's case.