‘An absolute tragedy’ cry shoppers as Post Office announces exact date it will close ‘best’ branch
SHOPPERS and locals have been left distraught after the Post Office confirmed it is closing one of its branches.
The postal company is pulling down the shutters on its site in Islingword Road, Brighton, on July 27.
The Post Office said the location, with shop inside, is closing after the postmaster resigned.
It is understood it could reopen under different ownership, although there is no guarantee this will happen.
Locals’ next nearest Post Office branches are in Lewes Road, St George’s Road, St James’s Street and London Road, all in Brighton.
A Post Office spokesperson said: “With a network of over 11,500 branches across the country, on certain occasions we have a Post office closing, or opening.
“We know how much customers rely on our mails and banking services.
“We are the only retailer that where possible seeks to open a new post office at the same site or close to where the previous post office was located.”
News the Brighton branch, known by Google reviewers for offering the “best” customer service, will close imminently has been met with devastation from locals online.
One said: “It’s an absolute tragedy indeed. The community may never recover from such an awful blow.”
Another said: “Terrible loss and can only hope somebody comes forward to run it.”
A third commented: “A tragic loss. Thoughts are with all those affected by this terrible news.”
A fourth added: “This is a huge loss to the area.”
It comes after the Post Office confirmed three branches would close last year, in a blow for locals.
Sites shut in Surrey, Aberdeenshire and Norfolk.
But it wasn’t all bad news as the closures came on the back of a number of openings.
The company pulled up the shutters on branches in Shropshire, West Yorkshire, Port Glasgow and London in 2023.
The Post Office also opened a new branch in Oxfordshire on Friday (June 14).
The number of Post Offices run across the UK has massively dwindled since the 1960s, when around 25,000 were in operation.
This is in part because more people started to receive benefits and pensions directly into their bank accounts, so needed the Post Office’s services less.
Post Offices also used to be the only places where you could buy postage stamps but you can now pick them up from supermarket and petrol stations.
The number of branches in operation across the UK has remained around the 11,500 mark over the last decade.
What else is happening on the high street?
A number of retailers have been closing branches across the UK in recent years.
The high street has been hit hard in recent years as shoppers turn to online retail, a trend made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline.
The Sun’s business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open. In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.
Businesses have also had to cough up more on energy, wages and business rates.
It has seen some shops forced to close permanently in a blow for customers.
Some major retailers have fallen into administration, including Ted Baker, Wilko and The Body Shop, seeing hundreds of shops close and thousands of workers lose their jobs.
It’s not all bad news for the sector though, as some chains have been expanding on the high street and in retail parks.
Poundland, Lidl and Aldi have all been opening branches across the UK, as shoppers turn to more budget-friendly options.
Aldi has said it wants to open hundreds more stores in the coming years, setting its sights on operating 1,500.
Health and beauty retailer Superdrug has also said it wants to open 25 new branches across the UK.
Asda has been opening hundreds of convenience stores in recent months as it looks to rival major players Tesco and Sainsbury’s.
B&M also plans to open “not less than” 45 brand new stores across the UK in each of the next two consecutive years.
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