A CAMPAIGN has been launched to reopen Wellington’s Crown Post Office to improve the range and quality of postal services for customers in the town.

The Crown office on the corner of High Street and White Hart Lane was downgraded 26 years ago and later closed completely in 1997 when a sub-Post Office franchise was agreed with a commercial operator.

At the time, there were huge public protests against both moves, but Wellington Town Council was assured by the Post Office that services would not suffer because of the changes.

However, with the sub-Post Office moving across the road to what was then Dillons and is now One Stop, complaints poured in about the poor facilities and quality of service for customers who had to queue in the aisles between products such as crisps and bottles of alcohol.

Now, with news of the One Stop building being put up for sale, a number of town councillors feel it creates an opportunity to restore better quality Post Office services for Wellington.

Town councillor John Thorne, who is also one of Wellington’s two county councillors, has written to Post Office Ltd’s retail chief executive Debbie Smith asking her to explore the idea.

Cllr Thorne said: “Post Office Ltd has just completed the largest branch restructuring programme in its history, with nearly 8,000 Post Offices converted to new operating models to allow a wider range of services and longer opening hours.

“But have we noticed this transformation here in Wellington? No, because we have been missed out.

“We have not even been told by PO Ltd what might happen to postal services when the One Stop building has been sold, which is causing a lot of concern in the community.

“There is no doubt we are being let down by PO Ltd, which seems to have forgotten about the £370 million of public money given to it by the Government last December to help support improvements in services.

“I realise the sub-Post Office staff do their best in what are clearly inadequate premises but the service is simply not good enough and unlikely ever to improve if things stay as they are.

“The old Post Office building is being used as part of the sorting operation these days, I believe, so I have asked if it can be reopened as a Crown office, which is a branch directly managed by PO Ltd.

“Failing that, an option would be to reopen it as what they call a Mains office, which has a greater range of services and usually opens for longer hours, and is something which a commercial partner could operate.

“Alternatively, they could look at relocating the existing sub-Post Office back into the old building which at the very least would be much more welcoming and accessible for customers.”

For the full story see this week’s Wellington Weekly News.