The Petition of customers of St John's Road Post Office and local residents of St John's Road and surrounding villages,

Declares that the Government must keep St John's Road Post Office open

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons accept this petition and call upon the Government and the Post Office to overturn their decision to close St John's Road Post Office.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Greg Clark, Official Report, 13 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 644.] [P000054]

Observations from the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform:

The Government fully recognises the important social and economic role of post offices, particularly in rural and deprived urban communities. That is why it is determined to maintain a national post office network allowing people to have reasonable access across the whole country and has put in place a new policy and financial framework to achieve this. The Government has been investing substantial sums in the post office network, totalling £2 billion since 1999. That has, for example, paid for a computer link-up for every post office as well as support for non-commercial branches since 2003.

In its response to the consultation on the Post Office network the Government announced back in May confirmation of its decision to extend funding of up to £1.7 billion to 2011, including provision of £150 million Social Network Payment to support the post office network up to 2011. The Government strategy includes provision for 2,500 compensated closures and 500 new Outreach services.

The 500 new and innovative Outreach locations, operated in partnership with other local services such as in pubs, village halls, churches or in mobile post offices, will mitigate closures, primarily in smaller and more remote communities. Nevertheless, to ensure sustainability, there will need to be up to 2,500 compensated post office closures within the defined access criteria.

Post Office Limited is responsible for implementing the network change programme at a local level. It is developing a rolling programme of some 50 local consultations on detailed area plans, based on groups of Parliamentary constituencies.

Post Office Ltd develops its proposals with the participation of sub-postmasters, local authorities and the consumer watchdog, Postwatch, and takes into account the numeric access criteria set out by Government as well as local factors affecting ease of access, such as local geography: rivers, mountains etc when drawing up its implementation plans. POL is also required to consider the availability of public transport and alternative access to key post office services, local demographics and the impact on the local economy. Local consultations provide the opportunity to raise any specific concerns over particular proposals.

The consultation period for the Kent area finished on 12 November and in announcing its final decisions on 6 December Post Office Ltd confirmed that the St John's Road Post Office will close. Post Office Ltd published their decision in an Area Plan Decision Booklet for Kent available on their website at: www.postoffice.co.uk/networkchange.

The Government does not have a role in proposals or decisions for individual post offices and final decisions on which post offices will close are taken by Post Office Ltd.