Barry Stamps Political Diary

It’s very easy in politics to lay the blame at someone’s door if it helps to make a point even if the person or organisation has had nothing to do with the issue being discussed. This week the news that the owners of Derrington Village Stores were retiring broke in the press. To all intent and purposes this would have been a non-story had it not have been for two factors. Firstly the Village Stores is the only shop in Derrington and secondly the shop is also home to the village post office. This means that once the shop is closed the post office disappears as well.

I’d learnt about the closure a few days ago and had also discovered that the Post Office had already put in place plans to operate a part-time replacement post office from probably the Village Hall. So you can imagine my surprise to see the main front page article in Wednesdays Express and Star in which the two Conservative Councillors for the Village seemed to play down the fact the shop owner had decided to retire and instead attacked the Post Office for withdrawing the service. Both Councillors said they were so appalled at the way the Village had been treated they were writing to the Post Office to tell them what they thought of the plan.

To make matters worse I then opened an e-mail from the Borough Council that had been sent on Tuesday which had a copy of a letter which the Post Office had sent to the Council’s Chief Executive attached. This clear said how sorry the Post Office was that the current shopkeeper and his wife were retiring and that because of this the Post Office in the village also had to close. However they were doing everything in their power to find someone else to take on the Post Office and were asking the Borough Council to let them know if they had any ideas as to who might be suitable for the job. They also said they hoped the village would be without a Post Office for the shortest time possible.

Hardly the stance one might expect from an organisation that had just shut the Post Office themselves.

Interestingly, I understand, the e-mail had also been sent to the two Councillors for the Village! Why they choose to make a statement to the press that attacked the Post Office is beyond me and I have to say a number of people I have spoken to have also made the same comment. One hope they just made a genuine mistake and hadn’t understood the real reason the Post Office was closing.