If You Value your Local Post Office, Use It

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 16th Oct 2002

Local MP John Thurso has this week delivered a stark message to communities across the North Highlands - "If you value your local Post Office, use it". His message follows complaints from a couple of community and sub-post offices that customers had recently come under pressure from the Department for Work and Pensions to switch existing pensions and benefits or have new pensions and benefits paid directly into a bank or building society account. The MP raised these concerns directly with the Department for Work and Pensions and DTI.

The MP said:

"The local post office has long played a pivotal role in the life of the community. For many in the more remote areas, it is not just the pension and benefit payment or book of stamps which the post office delivers. It may offer the essential loaf of bread, necessary fuel supplies or the standby half a dozen eggs. The survival of the "local" post office is therefore crucial to the well-being of the community.

Without the income from pensions and payments - and the associated business which their payment brings to the post office - many of the smaller offices could be at risk. I would urge all who value the presence of the local post office to use it to the full.

If any individual feels under pressure from the Department for Work and Pensions to have their pension or benefit paid directly into a bank or building society in the run up to the introduction of the Post Office Universal Bank next year, I would be very grateful to hear from them".