Press Release: Davis slams post office closures

Davis
slams new Post Office closures

Kevin
Davis calls for Council to do more to help vital community Post
Offices

Kevin Davis, the
Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Yeovil, has today called for
local Somerset Councils to do more to support post offices. It is
time for locao Government to get closer to the people and what better
way to do this than to put housing offices, benefits offices, Council
Tax payments, Penalty Charge Notices and a range of other services,
into our local post offices.

Leaked Government
documents have said that the the Post Office will announce on the
26^th February 2008 the closure of five post offices in the
Yeovil constituency. The post offices are situated in East Coker,
Mudford, Haselbury Plucknett, Goldcroft in Yeovil and Barwick. There
will now be a short consultation period before the final closures are
announced.

Kevin Davis said: “Yet
again this Government is demonstrating what utter lack of concern it
has for rural life. The decline of the pension book and the rise of
the internet for accessing public services have all starved Post
Offices of the very things that Post Offices need to financially
survive. Is it any surprise they are not financially viable. One
imagines that this supposed consultation between before final closure
will be a sham.”

Kevin Davis
continued:

“However, the problem is
also one for the Lib Dem MP and his colleagues in local town halls.
It is shocking that David Laws and his Lib Dem Council have not done
more to help these facilities. If, as they claim, the Lib Dems value
these facilities, then the MP should have been working with these
Post Offices to turn them into community hubs for local council
services – instead they have let them wither on the vine.”