news story

13th November 2008

West MP Welcomes Success of Campaign on Post Office Card Accounts

Northavon MP and longstanding post office campaigner Steve Webb has welcomed today's announcement that the Post Office is to be awarded the contract to continue running the post office card account (POCA).

Payments to run the account are a major part of the revenue of many sub post offices across the West and the loss of the contract would have meant certain closure for hundreds of post offices across the region.

MPs have been deluged with campaign postcards calling for the post office card account to be retained by the Post Office and Steve Webb had written directly to the Prime Minister to urge him to keep the account with the Post Office. The issue was raised in Parliament on Monday evening in a debate led by the Liberal Democrats and today (Thursday) the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced that the account would stay with the Post Office.

Commenting on the decision, Steve Webb said:

"I am delighted that our campaigning in support of local post offices has been successful. I have received literally hundreds of postcards from concerned local residents about this issue and took it up directly with the Prime Minister. The Government has kept postmasters in suspense totally unnecessarily for over a year over this decision and it is long overdue. I hope that the Government will now stop undermining the post office network but will actually promote the Post Office Card Account as a good way for people to receive their pensions and benefits".

The Northavon MP is currently working with community leaders in Tytherington to put together a financial package to enable Tytherington Post Office to be re-opened. He added:

"If the card account had been taken away this would have meant the end for our attempts to re-open Tytherington Post Office. But now that this uncertainty has been removed I will be redoubling my efforts with community leaders to put together a package that would enable this vital community resource to be restored to local people".

Last week Steve Webb, Tytherington Parish Council chairman Roger Unwin and Tytherington Village Shop chairman Jeremy Evans had a meeting with senior council officers to discuss what financial support the Council could provide to Tytherington and further discussions are planned.