PETITIONS DON’T HELP POST OFFICES

At a meeting of Kent County Council’s Cabinet Scrutiny Committee yesterday, consumer organisation Postwatch criticised the use of petitions in campaigns about possible changes to the Post Office network and service. 

Representatives of Postwatch said that the County Council should encourage people to respond to the forthcoming consultation on the potential changes with information to back up their views, rather than signing up to petitions. But that is what KCC’s Conservative administration has been suggesting people should do.

Labour Group spokesman for Regeneration, Roger Truelove, said: “The fact that KCC’s Tory Leader and his Cabinet have already started encouraging people to sign up to petitions shows that they’re not really interested in making a useful contribution to this consultation. Instead, they’d prefer to use the future of the Post Office network in this county as a political football.

“Members of the Tory administration were offered a confidential briefing about the potential changes, but preferred the grandstand of a public Cabinet meeting. As a result, they found out nothing very useful, but they still started to make ‘a hell of a noise’ about the potential changes before they understood what they might be and before the consultation had even started”.