Residents in the West Shropshire villages of Hope and Bentlawnt have demanded that Shropshire Council gets its act together and give their Post Office service a dedicated phone line.
Heather Kidd said: “The Post Office in Bentlawnt closed over a year ago. Since then the Post Office from Pontesbury have been running an outreach service in nearby Hope Village Hall every Wednesday. Local residents have rallied round and turned the occasion into a major social event every week with teas, coffees and soup being sold to raise funds for the village hall. Local shops have also come along to run stalls.
“Unfortunately the connection for the Post Office equipment in the hall is inadequate to run a reliable service. They have been relying on the mobile phone signal – which sometimes failed. The Post Office have recently upgraded their equipment with a system that requires a better connection. It simply will not work using a mobile phone connection or wireless.
NO SERVICE FOR 5 WEEKS
“We have all been pressing Shropshire Council hard over the last year to grant permission (a ‘wayleave’) to run a line across the site of the old Hope School next door. BT Openreach is ready to put the line in.
” All we have had is prevarication and foot dragging over the last twelve months and people are now beginning to get angry. We haven’t had a post office service now for the last 5 weeks because the equipment will not connect. People will have to take their business elsewhere if they cannot rely on the service.
“In this age of austerity, communities are pressed to take on services for themselves. The last thing you expect is to be stymied by your Council by the paper work simply not being completed.”
Notes:
The Post Office normally runs from 12.15 pm to 2.45pm every Wednesday at Hope Village Hall.
The community lost its school at Hope and the Shop and Post Office closed the after the following Christmas – Jan 2017.
The Hall Committee put on a Christmas lunch Dec 2017 for the community and now puts on a full lunch once a month during the Post Office visit.