Worrying Times with Scottish Post Offices –

Closures, Closures, Closures

For those of us who need the post office on a regular basis the trek to the nearest office can now sometimes be unnecessarily long. My take on post offices is a bit jaundiced at the moment. I have just moved as you might remember and in the last place we lived we were all surprised in the queue for posting when the police came and arrested the Post Master. He’d had been taking money out of an old lady’s account, because she had trusted him with her bank card and PIN number. He’d been taking money for quite a while. It was only discovered when she died and her relatives audited her accounts. The Post Master was obviously a crook and no sympathy for him, he got 12 months, but it is a sign of the stress small and rural post offices are under that making a living gets harder every year.

Phantom Post Offices

And the official figures for post office closures in Scotland cannot be trusted

Some 32 post offices mostly rural offices, marked as temporary closures have been shut for five or more years. In all a total of 78 post offices are still officially open for business – while in reality their doors are locked and unlikely to re-open. These are classed as “temporary closures” by the powers that be, but there is little chance of being able to recruit anyone to run them with the economics so badly skewed against the potential small business owners. It was all part of a year 2000 cull which led to planned closure of 511 Scotland. However, this cull has gone way beyond and the true numbers are 589, with 78 closures going unannounced because they were “temporary”. A total of 3 new post offices will open in Scotland next year, but it is unlikely that they will fill the needs of the rural and older population.

Take the Trudge Out of Shopping

Well with a fair trek to my new post office, it is a 15 to 20 minute walk and all part of my fight the flab regime, I know that posting stuff is a chore. But we like to take the hard work out of things and what could be easier than sitting in the comfort of your own home and choosing high quality merchandise from a trusted name like James Pirie. And at the moment we have some very choice offers and I’d like to recommend a few specials in the timeless beauty of crystal. The Edinburgh Range, terrific!

https://www.jamespirie.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=edinburgh