Discover Hertford Online Forum

I was in the Post office this morning and the guy said that the company that own the building are kicking them out and for the foreseeable future the Post Office will be in a portacabin. Not sure what to make of this.

The franchise that operates out of the building (which I believe is owned by The Post Office) is being evicted.

You can draw your own conclusions from what appears to be a sudden (or "irregular") closure.

Something very similar happened in my home town of Weymouth a couple of months ago. Left a town of 50,000 without a main post office for a couple of weeks. Not sure if the reasons are the same. But fairly obviously money is king here.

More information from The Mercury ...

http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/H ... story.html

Anyone hoping for a credible alternative to our Tory MP will be disappointed to read the Labour candidate's clueless comments on the closure:

Labour's Parliamentary candidate, Katherine Chibah, blamed the move on the Royal Mail's privatisation in 2013. "The closure of Hertford Post Office is a major blow to the local community," she said. "It is a huge let down for those who collect their pensions and use it for the other services it provides. Many warned that the recent sell off of the Post Office by the Tory-led Government would lead to local closures and sadly that seems to be the case."

Overlooking the fact that Katherine feels political posturing is more important than representing her potential constituents, she makes a couple of very basic factual mistakes. Firstly, The Post Office has not been sold off. It is still a nationalised limited company. She seems to be confusing The Post Office with The Royal Mail. The Post Office has not been a part of The Royal Mail for nearly three years. Secondly, The Post Office has not closed the Fore Street branch, the owner of the building has evicted them (albeit quite suddenly and without explanation). The Post Office are doing their best to maintain a presence in the town having been thrown out of their existing premises.

There is a very sweet post office (if a post office can be called sweet) on the sele farm shops.

It is quite traditional in that it closes for lunch between 1p.m. and 2p.m. but I find this quite endearing (weirdly). The staff in there are really quite lovely and it sells second hand books for charity. I have never been in the main town post office and have found this sub office has been very handy.

I think they may explode if they have to cope with the whole town albeit for a brief period as there are only two windows.

There is also the Post Office in Bengeo, rear of the Co-Op on Bengeo Street, beware of parking problems but other than that it is wonderful. It also closes for lunch and on Wednesday afternoons but at least we still have it!

Best to park some way away and walk if you are not close enough to walk from home.

If you are wanting to post parcels or have larger items weighed and checked for size then Good News in The Avenue, Bengeo can do that for you.

Meanwhile, in Redruth....

http://www.markprisk.com/news/prisk-int ... ce-closure

Looking forward to them offering a service rather than inadequate number of windows, with grumpy, unhelpful staff and long queues...

TupennyRush wrote:Looking forward to them offering a service rather than inadequate number of windows, with grumpy, unhelpful staff and long queues...

But where would the existing grumpy staff find work? There are not that many job vacancies for Doctor's receptionists.

Maybe they could negotiate with the landlord of the long empty unit in Mainlined Street that used to be McDonald's / Fine Fare................no one else seems to want it!