Lib Dem Councillor Tony Skottowe forms post office user group to monitor service.

1.22.28pm GMT Fri 9th Jan 2009

At a recent meeting of the Council of War formed to fight the PO closure plans for Handside Post Office it was suggested by Cllr. Tony Skottowe that it might be a good idea to set up a Users Group to monitor performance of the few remaining post offices. Everyone at the meeting thought this a good idea and so Tony was asked to start the ball rolling.

The idea behind the User Group would be to gather information about the quality of the service in the few remaining post offices in the Borough. The main office in Howardsgate, about which various 'promises' were made on service levels as justifications for closing the heavily used Handside post office in Huttons, would be an obvious candidate for such a group to monitor. Initially the organisers would like to hear from people interested in becoming involved and to find out whether it would be better to have a borough-wide organisation or separate groups concentrating on specific areas, such as Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield.

If you would like to become involved in the proposed Post Office Users Group please contact Cllr. Tony Skottowe either by email at Tony.Skottowe@welhat.gov.uk, or write to him at 60 Bridge Road, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire AL8 6UR. Please give your name, address, phone number and email address(if you have one). It would also be helpful to hear views on the alternatives of one large group or smaller more geographically concentrated ones, plus what you would want to bring to the group to make it a really powerful weapon in making sure we get decent service from the Post Office.

Assuming there is sufficient interest the organisers will contact everyone who responds by the end of January to inform them of what form the User Group/s should take and inviting them to a meeting to create whatever structures people think will be most effective.