SUB-POST OFFICE, RADCLIFFE (CLOSURE) (Hansard, 19 February 1964)

§ Mr. John C. Bidgood (Bury and Radcliffe)
The subject I want to raise was originally to have been raised in July of last year, but my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General may remember that I gave the time to the then Prime Minister so that he could make an announcement that we had signed the nuclear weapons test-ban treaty. I was glad on that occasion to give up my time to that most important matter. My constituents, of course, were glad, too, that that treaty was signed. I hope that tonight my hon. Friend will emulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) and give equal cause for satisfaction to my constituents in Radcliffe.
This debate arises out of a decision to close the Blackburn Street sub-post office, in Radcliffe, next August, when a new Crown post office is to be opened. We have had this sub-post office for 30 years, during which time people have built their lives around it. It is used by a large number of people, particularly pensioners going to draw their retirements pensions and mothers going to draw family allowance.
A week ago today I had the opportunity to present to my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General a petition signed by 1,351 people against the closing of this sub-post office. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the fact that as recently as last Monday he visited the place to find out for himself whether or not it was necessary for the sub-post office to continue. I hope that his visit has convinced him that it would be desirable to keep it open.
I was glad of the opportunity to show him the hill that elderly people would have to climb if the place were closed and they had to go to the bottom of the hill to collect their pension and do other necessary business at the counter. I pointed out to my right hon. Friend last Monday that many people would have to make journeys on at least two buses to reach the new Crown post office.
1360 I do not think that it is necessary for me to make out a case for the continuation of this sub-post office, but I should like to quote from one or two letters from constituents. We all appreciate that friends and relatives can collect pensions on behalf of retirement pensioners, and I want to quote from a letter written to me by a doctor. He writes: I have quite a number of elderly patients living in the area around Blackburn Street. They have to visit the Blackburn post office weekly for their pensions, allowances, etc. Apart from being old some of them are in poor health and are only able to walk short distances. A little exercise helps them, and a short walk to the post office helps them mentally and physically. They do not like other people to draw their pensions for them. To move the post office to the town centre would cause great hardship to these people. They could not walk up and down Blackburn Street and could not afford to travel on buses. I quote a sentence or two from a letter received from a local clergyman: You will be used to any proposed change being met by resentment and opposition. This is the first time I have felt bound to protest. Streams of people from factories and from the Manchester trains find it convenient to use the post office in Blackburn Street on their way to and from work. 'The hill' is an immeasurable inconvenience, and only people living in the town know with what reluctance, except on market days, they will go down to the bridge unless forced to do so. I was going to quote from further letters from a businessman, a professional man and various other people who are intimately concerned in this matter, but I do not propose to do so because I think probably I have made my point to my hon. Friend. All I should like to say to him is this. At this sub-post office 850 pensioners draw their pensions every week, and, in addition, 20 to 30 blind people make their way by some means or other to this office. If it is so closed it means that these 850 pensioners and 20 to 30 blind people are going to find their lives made far more difficult by having to go to the bottom of a very steep hill and then find their way back again.
If any more proof were needed that this sub-post office should remain open, I can only tell my hon. Friend that I have received a deputation from the mayor, the town clerk and various councillors who are appalled at the prospect that this sub-post office should be closed. I am the first to appreciate that the Post Office must operate as an 1361 economic concern. Otherwise, my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General could not carry out his duties efficiently. All I would say in this context is that at the moment in this vicinity there are one Crown office and two sub-offices. It is proposed, if the sub-post office to which I refer is closed, that there should then be one Crown office and one sub-office. I should like to know why it should have been necessary to cut out one sub-post office when, for the last 30 years, it has served a very useful purpose.
I should like to put a proposition to my hon. Friend. Some time ago we had a similar problem in my constituency concerning the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. The proposal was to close the local office of the Ministry of Pensions in Radcliffe and to concentrate business at the Bury branch. I protested 10 my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, and he agreed to retain the Radcliffe office as a caller office as an experiment to see how it worked. I am merely asking my hon. Friend to do the same.
I should like to have the assurance of my hon. Friend that the Blackburn Street sub-post office will be kept open if only for a sufficient period to ascertain whether it is serving a useful purpose or not. What I would, of course, like to have from him in addition is an assurance that if this experiment proves worth while, the Blackburn Street sub-post office will remain open permanently.
I believe that the hundreds of people who have contacted me over this matter are very reasonable people, and I can assure my hon. Friend that this is not a frivolous request on their part. From the information I have given my hon. Friend tonight, I hope that he will agree that most of the complaints have come not from people who are going to be personally inconvenienced, but from people who are deeply concerned about the inconvenience that might be caused to old people and to people who are infirm or incapacitated. I hope that after my right hon. Friend saw the site for himself last Monday he will appreciate that there is a very good case for keeping the sub-post office open.

§ The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Ray Mawby)
First, I should like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Bidgood) for the reasonable way in which he has put his case. As long ago as 1954 the Town Clerk of Radcliffe, on behalf of the council asked us to consider removing the Crown post office in Milltown Street, Radcliffe, to the area which was to be developed as the new town centre.
The office in Milltown Street was too small to meet the demands made on it, and it was not, in any case, as centrally situated as we should have wished. We decided, therefore, that it would be right and in the best interests of Radcliffe to accept the council's invitation to acquire a site in the new centre, where we could put a modern and enlarged post office more suited to the needs of the town. This we did, and, finally, with the council's co-operation, we obtained a site in December, 1959.
We realised at this time that a new Crown office in the town centre would be less than a quarter of a mile away from the sub-post office in Blackburn Street, and that it would be difficult to justify keeping open that office after the Crown office was ready. I must say that all our subsequent planning has been on that basis. Indeed, when the sub-postmastership of the Blackburn Street office became vacant towards the end of 1954 it was filled on a temporary basis with just this point in mind.
When my hon. Friend first raised the question with us early in 1960, my predecessor went into the whole matter very carefully indeed, and both my right hon. Friend and I have recently gone over it again equally thoroughly. Indeed, my right hon. Friend himself, as my hon. Friend said, visited the area and the two offices mainly concerned earlier this week.
My hon. Friend is concerned because some of the people who live and work in the immediate vicinity of the Blackburn Street office would have further to go to reach a post office, and the town clerk has just sent us a petition from 1,350 local residents. My hon. Friend has also made the point that matters would be made more difficult, especially for older people, because there is a [...]ill between the Blackburn 1363 Street office and the site of the new Crown office. He has also expressed concern about what would happen to the Sub-Postmaster of the Blackburn Street sub-post office if his office was closed.
We have gone into all these matters very carefully. In fact, the distance between the Blackburn Street sub-office and the site of the new Crown office is only about 400 yards. It is true, as my hon. Friend has said, that there is a hill between the places, but I think it is right to say that the gradient is not really a very steep one. However, this may be, there is for those who wish to avoid climbing the hill a frequent bus service between Blackburn Street and the bus station which adjoins the site for the new Crown office. For those who do not wish to negotiate the hill, or to use the bus services there is the Water Lane sub-post office, 500 yards to the north of the Blackburn Street office, which can be reached without climbing a hill of any kind.
But for any retirement pensioners who would find the journey to either of these two post offices too much for them there is, of course, the arrangement which enables a friend or relative to collect their pensions for them. I mention this arrangement because it is available, but I accept the view which my hon. Friend has put forward, that many elderly people prefer to collect their own pensions, and I hope that those living in the vicinity of the Blackburn Street sub-office would still be able to do so in one of the ways I have mentioned.
The sub-postmaster of the Blackburn Street office, I am glad to be able to tell my hon. Friend, was appointed to another sub-post office in Manchester last August. Since then he has been running the Blackburn Street sub-office as well.
My hon. Friend asked why, if a Crown office and a sub-post office, can exist together now, they could not do so in future. This is a very reasonable question, and I hope that the House and my hon. Friend will excuse me if I go into some detail in replying to it In taking up the council's suggestion, we are spending about £46,000 in providing a modern and spacious Crown office which will be in keeping with the 1364 other development taking place in the town centre. This office will be a good deal nearer to the Blackburn Street sub-post office than the present Crown office is, and it will be bound to attract some of the business now being done there. It is being built on a scale which will enable it, unlike the present Crown office, to handle this additional business easily and efficiently.
The present cost of the Blackburn Street office is about £1,800 a year. It is not, of course, possible to say how much of its business would stay with it if it remained open following the opening of the new Crown office, but it is more than likely that a good deal of the business which would otherwise go to the Crown office would remain at Blackburn Street, and that the office would continue to cost us a good deal of money.
As there would be no consequential reduction in the cost of running the new Crown office we should be paying a considerable sum each year to keep open an office which was roughly midway between two other offices—the Water Lane sub-office and the new Crown office—which themselves were only a little over half a mile apart and were well equipped to deal with all the available business.

§ Mr. Bidgood
I would have thought that, apart from the economic considerations, the question of service comes into this matter. It is well known that at the existing Crown office queues constantly form. I had an example given to me the other day of a business man trying to post an airmail parcel. It took him 25 minutes from the time of going into the Crown office to coming out. I would have thought that that alone would have shown that there was a good case for keeping open the sub-post office.

§ Mr. Mawby
Obviously, cost alone cannot be considered. There is the social importance of the Post Office, and obviously one would hope that with the new Crown office this sort of experience would not happen. Therefore, again, as we are always faced with in the Post Office, there is the question of trying to balance the social need against the financial position as far as post offices are concerned.
1365 I do not propose to go into any great detail on the position of the new building, though the new building will be in advance of the old Crown office building, but I would like to say that I have listened extremely carefully to what my hon. Friend has said. I have tried to point out to the House the problems which face us as a Post Office, and with these considerations and the others I have mentioned earlier in mind, we should, I think, find it difficult to justify keeping open the Blackburn Street sub-office once the new Crown office is open. But the Crown office will not be ready 1366 until August at the earliest. I assure my hon. Friend that no decision about the future of the Blackburn Street sub-office will be taken until later in the year.

§ Mr. Bidgood
I thank my hon. Friend very much for the consideration he has given to whit I have said tonight. I hope that, when the new Crown office is opened, he will look at the matter on its merits.