Post office customers win battle over change
Controversial plans to change the layout of a village post office have been shelved after hundreds of objections were lodged by residents.
Proposals to change the layout of the post office in the News Express store on Lansdowne Road, Bayston Hill, near Shrewsbury were branded a "major downgrade" by councillors.
The Shropshire Council representative for Bayston Hill, Ted Clarke, said the applicants were seeking to remove the existing post office area in the shop and replace it with a single counter for the combined sale of shop goods and post office services.
But the plans – which coincided with proposals for the shop to sell alcohol from Monday to Sunday between 8am and 10pm – were criticised by local residents.
Mr Clarke said during the consultation period up to 300 residents filled in customer comment forms about the proposed changes to the post office.
Today a post office spokesman confirmed the project had been shelved.
He said: "Discussions were held with the subpostmaster at Bayston Hill about making some changes to the Post Office.
"For commercial reasons the decision was taken not to proceed with the changes at this time.
"The branch continues to operate as normal."
Mr Clarke said that he was "pleased" that the post office bosses had listened to residents' concerns.
He said: "Given reports of similar service-point reconfigurations made recently in some other Shrewsbury sub post offices, angry residents up here were very much concerned that the proposed changes were very probably a corporate 'done deal', regardless of the consultation exercise.
Mr Clarke added: "However, I'm pleased the post office has responded so positively to the views of myself and all their other local customers."
