Error Means that Post Office Consultation Period Must be Halted, says John Leech MP

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 2nd Jul 2008

John Leech MP has also launched a "Save our Post Offices" campaign to halt Labour's closures.

John Leech MP, Liberal Democrat MP for Manchester Withington, is calling for the public consultation period on post office closures to be immediately halted after uncovering a shocking postcode flaw in the system, which may mean that hundreds of local voices will not been heard.

Astonishingly, Royal Mail have omitted a postcode from the Freepost address to which members of the public have been writing to express their opposition to planned Post Office branch closures, including Parrs Wood and Lapwing Lane.

Concerned Royal Mail staff have alerted Mr Leech to the fact that this means that in some sorting offices, letters sent to this address could go undelivered, being deposited in so-called 'blind boxes' alongside other incorrectly addressed correspondence. Consequently, the appeals of local residents could go unheard by the consultation panel.

John Leech MP has therefore contacted the consultation team to alert them to this problem and is demanding that they halt the consultation period until the problem has been rectified, people have been made aware of the problem and guarantees have been made that staff at all sorting offices know where the letters need to go. Mr Leech also plans to raise the matter in parliament today when a debate on post office closures takes place.

Speaking about this latest debacle, John Leech MP said:

"It is appalling that this sort of fundamental error has occurred at this critical time in the process. Local people are already angry about the Government's planned closures and this serves only to make things worse. The consultation period must be put on hold until the problem has been fixed and people are aware of what's been happening so that they can have their voices heard.'

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