By Lesley Walsh
THE PROPOSED closure of Groomsport’s Post Office service has come as a ‘huge shock’ to the local community and will be fought on behalf of residents and businesses.
North Down MLA Alan Chambers, who operates the Spar shop housing the Post Office counter, said he was also ‘hugely disappointed’ to learn of the closure from a third party.
The Assemblyman, who established a Post Office counter in his shop when the former standalone branch closed down, said to-date, he has still not received official word of the surprise shut-down.
Mr Chambers said the decision to close the service on March 25, was contained within a statement from the Post Office, but ‘only warranted a single line in a lengthy press release announcing the closure of Portavogie Post Office’.
That service, at the lower end of the Ards Peninsula, is also due to close on March 25.
He commented: “The news that our office will be forced to close on March 25, when the Portavogie post mistress retires has come as a huge shock to us and our staff. Given the loyal service
we have given the Post Office we have been hugely disappointed with the complete absence, to-date, of any official notice or information regarding the proposed closure.
Stating that his type of service, visible in similar shops throughout the village and the borough, Mr Chambers said: “We will continue to try and reach out to Post Office management to confirm our willingness to continue to deliver much needed Post Office services in Groomsport.
“It is important to the residents of Groomsport that they don’t lose this important service,” he said, and pledged to attempt to make ‘meaningful contact will be made with Post Office management to reverse this decision’.
Commenting that the Groomsport service has ‘never had an operating blemish during its years of service’, Mr Chambers pointed out: “Despite the Post Office losing many of its historic services with the resulting impact on generated income, my family has continued to maintain staff numbers and has never considered for one moment withdrawing the important Post Office provided to the village.
Following that, he said: “A spirited local campaign had to be mounted to encourage the Post Office to come up with a model that would protect residents of the village access to local Post Office services, especially pensioners who at that time could collect their state pension each Monday to permit them to budget their outgoings for the week ahead.”
He said that in response to the campaign, Post Office Counters came forward with a model that would ‘allow a partnership Post Office to operate in Groomsport under the direction of Portavogie Post Office’.
“Despite pressure on shop floor space my family Spar business offered to establish a compact Post Office counter in our supermarket and self- funded the physical creation of this office. Staff were recruited and trained to operate the office which comes with a huge responsibility due to the staff being accountable for every penny of cash and stock in the office and balancing the books on a daily basis.”
Reflecting on the period when the former standalone Post Office postmaster retired, which he said threw the ‘future of Post Office services in the village into doubt’, he said it became ‘clear that a stand-alone Post Office might not be sustainable going forward’.
