SAVING POST OFFICES

20 June 2008

Time is drawing in for our rural post offices.

Not many days from now, we will hear where the axe may fall in West
Dorset.

Luckily, the County Council and our District Council are more than
willing to play their part in trying to find community solutions which
will keep all or most of the threatened post offices open.

Of course, we shouldn't have to be doing this. The whole closure
programme makes no real sense, and it isn't the right way to be going
about reducing costs at post office headquarters.

But at least we should be able to help a phoenix to arise from the
ashes in many cases.

In villages where I have attended public meetings about this in recent
weeks, I have been struck by the enthusiasm that local people have for
their post office and for finding solutions that will keep the thing
going while cutting the costs for post office headquarters.

I have also been encouraged to find that the headquarters management
team seem to be more than willing to work with our councils and
parishes to establish such solutions.

This whole episode is also interesting proof that the cynics who say
people aren't interested in politics or local government any more are
just plain wrong. In the three villages where we have so far had open
meetings about this subject, the average turn out has been something
between a quarter and a fifth of all the adults in the village. One
has to remember that this is equivalent to a public meeting attended
by about two million people in London.

I suspect that even the cynics would regard that as demonstrating a
high level of public interest.

What is it that brings people out when a topic like this is on the
agenda?

The answer seems fairly clear: it surely has a great deal to do with
the fact that this isn't about some abstruse political argument. It's
about a concrete reality that everyone can see for themselves. And
it's about taking practical steps that can bring about change.

My conclusion is that people aren't apathetic in the way that the
cynics imagine: they just reserve their enthusiasm for topics where
they feel they can make a real difference.

This, surely, ought to lead us to a further conclusion: namely, that
we would have more real democratic involvement if we gave people more
power and opportunity in their own lives by giving communities more
control over their own affairs.

The real enemy of participation isn't apathy; it's centralisation.
Take power away from people, and they will naturally react by staring
at you glumly – at least until they are angry enough to revolt. But
if you give people a sense that they really can take part in shaping
the way they live, they will turn up and they will take part.

Let's just hope that the outcome of the post office saga in West
Dorset is sufficiently positive to justify all that enthusiastic
involvement.