More evidence of the effects of a changing High Street hits Bath. The city’s central post office is likely to close next year.
A new service – with six serving counters and five self-service kiosks – is proposed to open on the first floor of WH Smith in Union Street.
The new location would be up and running in April, 2019 and offer seven-day opening hours.
The plan is now out for local public consultation and you can pick up a copy of the proposals – and how you can comment – from the Northgate Street office.
The Post Office say:
” This move is part of the continuing modernisation of your branch network. We believe the most effective way to secure the long term viability of Post Office services in Bath is through a carefully selected retail partner, and we are confident that our proposal is the best way of safeguarding services for the community its for years to come.
The vast majority of our 11,600 Post Office branches, are and small, are successfully operated in this way with retail partners and we believe this is the best approach to keeping Post Offices in main shopping locations and at the heart of communities where they play an important role in local economies.”
WHS Smith has been operating Post Offices within its stores since 2007 and currently runs over 130 branches.
The new Bath branch would operate from a newly built open-plan Post Office located on the first floor of the Union Street store and to the right hand side – which can be accessed by a customer lift, an up escalator or stairs.
A public consultation is open until December 19th. You can contact the Post Office via postofficeviews.co.uk or call 03452 66 01 15 or textphone 03457 22 33 55 or FREEPOST your comments.
The current post office occupies the back end of an impressive Neo-Georgian building erected as a central post office in 1923-7 and – at the time – replaced the Castle Hotel.
The basement is occupied by the Bath Postal Museum who l have approached for comment.
When an organization – be it public or private sector – unveils a plan that it promises will deliver an improved service it can be assumed safely that deterioration will be the outcome. This was the case – through no fault of the staff – when the Bath post office moved from its Grade II listed building, now a frock shop, to its current premises where staff have been replaced gradually replaced by machines.
As for the proposed move, what happens if and when WH Smith goes under? Never mind; Bath has a casino.
David Kernek
The fate of the Clifton Triangle branch in Bristol is a warning. It moved into a branch of the Co op which then closed. For a time the PO remained open, and you walked through a dark shop with empty shelves and dangling cables to get to the counter at the back. The shop which replaced it didn’t want a PO counter so it vanished. The assurances only a few years earlier that the service would be preserved were valueless.
And if we are all moving to internet shopping, how easy will it be for people to return unsatisfactory goods?