Background

There has been a general decline in the number of services available locally within the smaller villages and communities in the rural parts of the County. This has been particularly true in terms of the provision of sub post offices in the south east of Cornwall, and in parts of west Devon. This has result in the need to travel to the nearest available facility, or has result in significant difficulties for some people in accessing the service at all.

The Concept

The concept is one of “taking the services to the people”, rather than the traditional issue of finding suitable transport to “take the people to the service”.

The Mobile Post Office is a vehicle that provides post office services for local communities that no longer have a conventional sub post office available, or where one did not exist. The present Mobile Post Office operates in east Cornwall and west Devon, currently serving 18 remote communities.

An original scheme was introduced in 1999, but vehicle reliability and on going maintenance costs became such that a new vehicle was required to continue the service. 

The mobile service was re-launched in 2002 using a replacement vehicle, based on a long wheelbase Vauxhall Movano. This new vehicle is fully equipped with Post Office IT and security systems. The main transactions are pensions, allowance payments, posting of letters and packages, and the payment of utility bills and personal banking. The vehicle carries a stock of sundries, and also has the ability to service the mobility impaired.

Funding

The mobile post office is operated by the Royal Mail, with partnership support from participating District Councils and Cornwall County Council.

Issues and Solutions

There have been very few problems with the setting up of the scheme.  In order to prevent any problem of extracting business from neighbouring village post offices occurring, careful research and routing of the vehicle has been carried out, and figures show that this has been successful to a large extent. The ability to deputise for sub post offices that are temporarily closed has also proved to be a major benefit.

Initial software problems meant that manual on-board transactions had to be entered into a main post office computer. This has been overcome due to the advances in computer technology, and the post office’s systems upgrade. It is now only necessary to download the day’s business on return to base.

Progress To Date

The Mobile Post Office is currently operating well and is improving access to services for residents of remote areas in East Cornwall and West Devon. The service it provides has been expanded to serve 13 remote communities in East Cornwall and 5 in West Devon.

The Mobile Post Office operates in Cornwall on 2 days each week serving an average of 160 people. The greatest number of transactions is retirement pensions (over 120 per week) together with stamp sales and posting of parcels and packets. Bill payment, particularly to SWEB and British Telecom is a major service and personal banking is growing in popularity. The vehicle carries a range of the sundry items that residents have found to be most useful.  This has enabled many of the older people to make the mobile unit a one-stop-shop for non-food items.

In addition, the Mobile Post Office is also able to ‘deputise’ at existing sub post office sites to cover sickness or unfilled sub postmaster vacancies. As described above, it offers most services that are obtainable at a sub post office including computerised payment systems. It is a good example of taking the services to the people, addressing social exclusion issues, and reducing the need to travel. 

For further information please contact pboorman@cornwall.gov.uk

Last revised - 12th August 2003