Richard Holden, Conservative MP for North West Durham, has confirmed that the Consett Post Office will be reopening.

The reopening follows Richard’s letter to the Chief Executive of Post Office, Mr Nick Read, to express his concerns about the premature closure of the Post Office and the effect this has had on the local community.

The Post Office is currently based within the retailer PhoneHub, which sells phones and stationery, but the store was closed for more than a month.

Richard wrote to Mr Nick Read to enquire about the reopening of the Post Office and to express his concerns about its closure. Richard has now received confirmation that the Post Office is reopening and was informed that the branch operator was putting measures in place to ensure that the reopening is safe for both staff and customers. The store will be operating with revised hours of 9.00-16.45 Monday to Saturday.

Commenting, Richard Holden, MP for North West Durham, said:

“I am really pleased that the Post Office has now reopened this week as it is a vital service, especially for the elderly and the vulnerable who rely on the Post Office for so many important daily tasks.

“It is clear that longer term measures need to be taken to ensure that my constituents are not left without a fully operational Post Office again. This is something I will be working on with the local community in the coming months.”

This is a stock photo of a random post box somewhere and is only tangentially related to this article.

Get CONSETT MAGAZINE straight to your inbox.

* indicates required

Previous articleComedian Carl Hutchinson Will Headline “On Stage: Online”
Next articleRhyme Time – Poem By Lorraine Weightman
Consett Magazine
The Consett Magazine Editing team lovingly ❤️ publishes local news from a variety of local people and sources. Please see the individual article for post specific source(s). Consett deserves good news. Submit your own story or call 01207 438292 for advertising and marketing campaigns.

4 COMMENTS

  1. This is very misleading. The photo used in the article is the old crown post office which was closed permanently recently. The one that is reopening is the new concession in PhoneHub in Middle Street that would have been reopening anyway due to lockdown easing. What a non story. You’re promoting the new MP an awful lot aren’t you Consett Magazine.

  2. Very misleading isn’t it. Shame on his government for closing the original post office. And shame on you for pushing lies.

    • There is no lie in this article that I know of. We did use a clickbait-y title, and we apologise for getting your hopes up. Thank you for the feedback, Jay, and we will discuss the clickbait-y-ness of our titles in our next meeting.

  3. It’s disgusting the UK government allowed this to happen to a national service.

    In November 2010, the government committed £1.34 billion of funding up to 2015 to Post Office Ltd to enable it to modernise the Post Office network.[6]

    As part of the Postal Services Act 2011, Post Office Ltd became independent of Royal Mail Group on 1 April 2012.[7] A ten-year inter-business agreement was signed between the two companies to allow post offices to continue issuing stamps and handling letters and parcels for Royal Mail.[8] The Act also contained the option for Post Office Ltd to become a mutual organisation in the future.[9]

    On 8 February 2013, Post Office Ltd announced it was planning to move around seventy of its Crown post offices into shops. This would reduce the Crown network, which it stated was losing £40 million a year, to around 300.[10]

    On 27 November 2013, the government committed an additional £640 million of funding for 2015 to 2018 to allow Post Office Ltd to complete its network modernisation.[11]

    In April 2016, the Post Office agreed to hand over up to 61 more branches to W H Smith in a 10-year deal. The deal was condemned as “blatant back-door privatisation” by the Communications Workers Union.[12]

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here