The relocation of Hayes Post Office

I am extremely concerned at the proposal to relocate Hayes Post Office to the WHSmiths on Station Road. Below is a letter I have written to the Managing Director of the Post Office regarding this serious matter.

Dear Mr Cook

Re: The relocation of Hayes Post Office

I wrote to you on the 3rd May 2007 expressing my concerns about your proposals with regards to the Hayes Post Office, and asked for full details of these proposals. I attach the letter for ease of reference. I now discover by contacting your organisation that my response was not even logged as part of the consultation process. In addition, in your letter dated 8th May 2007 I was promised that your external relations team would contact me for a face to face meeting to discuss the specific Hayes proposals. This never happened.

First, I wish to comment on the consultation process your organisation has undertaken. There has been extremely limited public awareness of the consultation process itself. Your organisation has failed to undertake a thorough consultation and in my view has treated my constituents with utter contempt. You are seeking to drive through a proposal which will undermine a vital community service to my constituents without properly informing them of the proposal or its consequences. You have failed to advertise these proposals adequately, failed to contact the wide range of community groups in my area who will be affected, and failed to hold any public meetings at which the detail of these proposals could be examined.

This has led to not only a lack of knowledge about the proposals in my area but also total confusion about the nature of these proposals. This is a blatant disregard of the interests of my community. Indeed I feel so strongly in this matter that I will be raising it in Parliament. 

The very limited timescale for your consultation is a clear indication that this exercise is a tokenistic sham and leaves myself and many members of my community to conclude that your organisation is not interested in our views.

I wish to make it abundantly clear that I am writing on behalf of all those organisations and members of my community who have made representations to me about their concerns about these proposals. This includes local councillors, Hayes local residents associations, the local pensioners association, the Hayes and Harlington Community Development Forum, local shopkeepers and businesses and numerous individuals.

The concerns expressed are as follows:

• The relocation to WHSmiths will result in a severe curtailment of Post Office services within the area.
• The Hayes Post Office is an extremely busy and successful community service which it will be impossible to relocate within the confined space of WHSmiths.
• The eventual result will be either a closure of the Post Office service within the town centre or the loss or substantial reduction in the services provided by the only bookshop and stationery retail outlet in our town centre. The loss of either the postal services or diminution of the bookshop/stationers will further contribute to the decline of Hayes town centre and undermine the regeneration initiative of the town centre currently being promoted by the Hayes and Harlington Community Development Forum working with the local Chamber of Commerce, local authority and community organisations.

I also wish to register my outright opposition to the outsourcing, indeed privatisation, of this valuable community service. We have witnessed what privatisation and outsourcing has produced in other areas. The inevitable result is a reduction in service, cuts in jobs and an attack on the wages and conditions of the workforce.

Finally let me reiterate on behalf of the community I represent our total opposition to these proposals. Indeed I have not received a single representation or met a single organisation or individual in my constituency who has expressed support for your proposals, and I would urge you now to withdraw them. At the very least I would ask that the implementation of these proposals be halted until a proper consultation has been undertaken. I would also urge that representatives of your organisation meet with me and local community organisations to discuss the proposals in detail and to examine their consequences for our area. In the coming weeks I will be convening a community conference which brings together representatives from local community and statutory organisations to discuss current issues in our community. This would be the ideal opportunity for you to send a representative to explain your proposals and to gain community feedback. This would be a real community consultation. If you fail to take up this offer it would confirm in my mind and the minds of my constituents our suspicion that your consultation is purely a public relations exercise, an absolute sham and that you have never been interested in our views from the moment these proposals were initiated.

I look forward to seeing whether your organisation will accept this offer and stand up to the test of a real consultation process. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

John McDonnell MP
Member of Parliament for Hayes & Harlington

submitted by John on 20 Jun 2007 at 09:17