Four hours yesterday in marathon meeting trying to get through to the Post Office how dreadful the proposals for shutting many of our local Post Offices are. And they didn’t really answer any of the questions put to them on finance at all properly. If they don’t know the answers to the actual financial situation – then that probably explains their diminishing empire – as the first step to running something well is to know what is actually going!

The refusal to give information on profit on each of the proposed closures because of ‘commercial’ sensitivity means that none of us can judge the choice of Post Offices for closure. It makes rather a mockery of a consultation when you say, “we’re doing this for financial reasons but we’re going to keep those financial reasons secret’.

And anyway, it’s not just a matter of the short-term financial situation of Post Offices. Post Offices are a crucial part of so many local communities, and their presence is a key part of having thriving high streets. Closing a Post Office isn’t just about its own finances, it’s about the other local businesses and it’s about the impact on residents. Mixed in there too is the Labour Government’s decision to make the Post Office make cuts – but then try to dodge responsibility by saying it’s up to the Post Office to decide how to make the cuts which in effect they’ve been ordered to make.

It was quite apparent from the second half of the Council’s scrutiny meeting that all five local Post Offices earmarked for closure (includes Highgate High Street which technically in Camden but affects Highgate residents on Haringey side just as much) were vital to their local residents.

The Post Office have admitted that when they close a Post Office, not all the business will then actually shift to other Post Offices. Instead, they expect to lose 20% of the business which each Post Office previously had. They were unable to answer what that 20% loss means in terms of lost profit – so it is very hard to understand whether the £45million per year that they will save is really a ‘saving’ if that loss is taken into account.

There are plenty of creative ideas around to make Post Offices more viable – but for all their talk of local communities, when it comes to the crunch – Labour is forcing the cuts on the Post Office, Labour MPs have had the chance to block closures in Parliament and voted the wrong way – and Labour is failing to push those creative ideas.

PS Remember to sign the petition here and there’s also a Facebook campaign for Highgate Village’s Post Office.