Future of Bridgwater's post office uncertain

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UNCERTAINTY surrounds the future of Bridgwater's only town centre post office, the Mercury can reveal.

We understand Martin's newsagents in Angel Place, where the post office is based, is unlikely to renew its 25-year lease in September.

Roger Smith, Angel Place manager, said: “I haven't heard confirmation from either the Post Office or Martin McColl, the company that owns the newsagents, but I understand staff have been spoken to.

“I have alerted my senior assets team and letting agents and we will do everything we can to secure an alternative location for the post office if that's what they want, but I cannot pre-judge that.”

A spokesman for the Post Office said it was “committed to maintaining a presence in the area and is in talks with a number of parties regarding the future provision of post office services."

Martin McColl was unavailable for comment as the Mercury went to press.

Bridgwater MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has written to Post Office Limited managing director Paula Vennels, asking for “urgent” reassurances that it will move into a new town centre site if it leaves Martin's.

He told the Mercury: “This is incredibly serious because it potentially means we may no longer have a post office in the centre of town.

“The Post Office promised when it closed the old one a few years ago, where Ladbrokes now is, that it would keep a premises in the town centre.”