Westcliff sans un post office - the unacceptable face of reorganisation / rationalisation / cuts

A no expense sign (ha ha ha)

Joyous news about where customers can now go

This is what the Post Office’s External Affairs Manager has to say about the continued closure of the post office in Hamlet Court Road :-

Thank you for you email. I can confirm that Westcliff on Sea Post Office, located at 150 Hamlet Court Road, SS0 7LN, is temporarily closed for operational reasons

I would also like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused by the temporary closure of this service, and to reassure you that we are investigating how services can be restored to the local community, including the possibility of the Post Office being run by Temporary Postmaster, if practical

In the meantime, should your receive any inquiries from local residents or businesses, the nearest alternative Post Office branches are:

Southend-on-Sea Post Office – 207 High Street, Southend-on-Sea SS1 1LN – 0.8 miles

Sutton Road Post Office – 88 Sutton Road, Southend-on-Sea SS2 5EW – 1.2 miles

Leigh Road Post Office – 82 Leigh Road, Leigh-on-Sea SS9 1BZ – 1.9 miles

When I have any further information I will update you. However, in the meantime, if I can be of any further assistance then please do contact me.

This is a far from satisfactory. I cannot say for certain how long this post office has been closed, but it has to be over a month. There is no close convenient alternative. We currently have no post office for all of Westcliff-on-Sea. Quite how many people this affects I really do not know, but it surely runs into thousands, possibly tens of thousands.

I was never keen on the idea of post offices being moved into the like of W H Smith. Is this further evidence that this drive to economise comes at the cost of customer access?

This once housed a post office