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Up to 6,000 loss-making post offices nationwide face being sold or axed as part of “secret plans”, a Midland post-mistress has claimed. Campaigners also claim bosses want to transform the scandal-hit Post Office service into a John Lewis-style ‘mutual’ company run by staff.
Ex-postmistress Sally Stringer, who ran a post office on the Worcestershire – Tewkesbury border at Beckford, gave evidence at the public inquiry into the scandal saying she was left stunned when officials discussed scaling down the state-owned network. During mediation talks with other workers, one executive told them: “Well, of course, we will only have 5,000 offices when we mutualise.”
Over half the network could be offloaded to help draw a line under the IT fiasco that saw thousands of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of stealing from their branches, The Mirror reported. That scandal has left taxpayers with a bill of up to £1 billion in compensation and legal fees.
READ MORE: Redditch widow says postmaster husband was ‘broken’ by false accusations
Ms Stringer said: “I looked at her and said, ‘Really? You’ve got 11,000 offices now, so you’re going to reduce by 6,000 offices…’” Ms Stringer, who ran the Beckford village post office for 20 years, told the inquiry such closures would be “fundamentally and utterly wrong”.
Plans to mutualise the PO were proposed nearly a decade ago but the idea was dropped. Mark Baker, of the Communication Workers Union, thinks the Post Office wants to give postmasters a share in its ownership, but he says this would only work if it ditched unprofitable branches and the Government ran them like a local library service.
“You wouldn’t get much resistance from post-masters if full compensation was paid,” said Mr Baker. “But customers would be very upset.” The John Lewis model of being a ‘mutual’ gives each employee a stake in the company.
(Image: PA)
The Government has said it is committed to maintaining the 11,500-branch network at its current level across the UK. The Post Office said: “Our network of 11,500 branches has been stable for the last decade and we’ve seen a net growth in our network of 181 branches between the end of March 2021 and December 2021 alone.”
