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Closure threat to estate’s post office
• MAY I endorse the sentiments expressed by Tulip Siddiq regarding the proposed closure of our post office in Albany Street (Post office under threat, May 7).
As a pensioner living in the area for the past 12 years I have regularly used it for paying bills and sending parcels et al.
I dread to think of having to go to the main branch in Camden High Street, with their queues outside the door, and wait in line for ages to be served.
One has to ask as to what support the present council administration intends to give as it appears that the contractual dispute between the owners of the outlet and the Post Office revolves around Saturday opening.
An old cynic like myself might suggest that this dispute eminently suits the purposes and philosophy of Lord Mandelson and Alan Cook Post Office managing director which gives them an opportunity to dispense with the six-week public consultation period regarding closures.
I note that Mr Cook’s local post office, close to his £1.5m mansion in Milton Keynes, was saved following public consultation. Will there be any consultation regarding Lord Mandelson’s local post office and likewise will it be saved?
Danny Gallivan
Rydal Water, NW1
Little help!
• HOW touching to see that Tulip Siddiq, a Labour prospective council candidate, is “extremely concerned” about the looming closure of Albany Street Post Office (Post office under threat, May 7).
That will probably be as little help to the pensioners fighting to save the post office as MP Frank Dobson’s concern was to those who were fighting to keep four other Camden post offices (Highgate High Street, England’s Lane, South End Green and Crowndale Road, Somers Town) open in March last year.
Then our Labour MP had himself photographed with Nicky Gavron, Councillor Roger Robinson and protesters outside the Crowndale Road post office, but when push came to shove on March 19 2008 he voted with the Labour government to defeat a motion calling on the Post Office to suspend the closure programme.
He said he was against the closures, but he voted for them!
There had already been 4,000 post office closures under the last Conservative government, but now there have been almost another 5,000 under Labour.
Camden alone has lost nine offices in the last nine years.
Well might Tulip be “very worried about the distances people will have to travel… if this closure takes place”.
But she should recognise that it is the party she supports which has been closing post offices left, right and centre, and which relentlessly continues to do so.
Mukul Hira
Chalton Street, NW1
Protest ploy
• I REFER to the letter from Tulip Siddiq and story (Pensioners turn protesters to save estate post office, May 7).
The story on page 5 was illustrated with a lively picture of spirited pensioners protesting outside the Albany Street Post office which serves some 6,000 people living on the Regent’s Park estate.
I was really surprised that Tulip was not in the photograph, because that was the ploy our Labour MP Frank Dobson used last year, when he was pictured joining protesters outside the Crowndale Road post office in Somers Town.
Days later, of course, he was happy to go through the government lobby, voting down a motion which would have called a halt to the post office closures, and saved Crowndale Road.
Abdus Shaheed
Crowndale Road, NW1
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