A Chink of Light in the Darkness
JULIA VAN COEVORDEN
The London Road Post Office building in the heart of St Leonards is in a sorry state. Take a look at the front facade of the building next time you go by. You’ll see cracks, missing chunks of concrete and a rusted reinforcing rod. This is a building at the heart of our community, serving the daily needs of customers from reside ntial and business backgrounds, and there it stands, looking as though it’s about to be demolished.
No doubt liability for repairs was passed on to the tenant when it was demoted from Crown status. Whoever is responsible, it doesn’t look as if Post Office Ltd, as the freeholder, has any interest in what happens to it.
This is the same Post Office Ltd that is currently subject to an ongoing inquiry in London dubbed ‘the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history’. The same Post Office Ltd who, while wrongly accusing hundreds of subpostmasters of theft, ended up stealing their good names, livelihoods, their assets and sometimes freedom (see postofficescandal.uk). This is the same Post Office Ltd that is letting an iconic 60s building fall into disrepair and dilapidation.
I worked hard with a group of local residents in 2017 and 2018 to save what was once the Crown Post Office in St Leonards. In the end we failed to save the Crown status, but the building is still being run as a Post Office rather than another ‘fags & mags’ outlet (PO Ltd’s preferred original franchisee). Back in January 2018 it was ‘temporarily’ transferred to Potent Solutions Ltd until a permanent franchisee could be found: as far as we know, nearly five years later, the situation remains the same.
I find it heartbreaking to see this neglect by the Post Office. It must be awful for the staff who work there as well. This is part of the disintegration and neglect of local amenities: if that goes on, community pride disintegrates. Awful for young people. Awful for the community.
However, it’s good to know that the Central St Leonards ward councillor, Trevor Webb, and Hastings Borough Council officers knew how to act promptly in the service of local residents and the community.
I wrote to Cllr Webb last week, with photographs of the extreme disrepair. He immediately alerted senior councillors and HBC officers to my concerns. This week, HBC Planning Enforcement department has already started an investigation into the dilapidation of the Post Office.
Meanwhile, if you’d like to add your voice and concerns to mine, whoever you are, please email Cllr Webb [email protected], or our MP Sally-Ann Hart, [email protected], in support of our Post Office remaining on site and being maintained in a safe condition for the benefit and the good of this community.
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