JULIA DEFENDS POST OFFICE CARD ACCOUNTS AS FOUR LANES COMES UNDER THREAT

10.25.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 30th Jun 2008

Julia has warned Ministers that pensioners in Four Lanes could be left high and dry if Post Offices lose the Post Office Card Account (POCA) in the current tendering process.

The POCA allows people to draw their pensions and benefits from the Post Office.

But the Government has put the contract out to tender - meaning rivals outside the PO network could end up taking the service instead.

The main rival for the POCA is Pay Point - but in Four Lanes, the village shop containing the only Pay Point is due close later this summer.

Julia has warned that pensioners will be cut off if the Government the moves the scheme outside the Post Office network, because nowhere else in the village will be able to deliver the service.

If the contract goes to Pay Point, hundreds of pensioners will have to travel to Redruth to draw their pensions instead of using their local Post Office - and many do not have cars.

Miss Goldsworthy, the MP for Falmouth and Camborne, said the loss of the contract would be another nail in the coffin of the Post Office network.

She said: "Villages like Four Lanes depend on their Post Office to provide essential services. Yet successive Conservative and Labour governments have done nothing but undermine the network.

"Thousands of Post Offices are closing this year, and now it seems more services could be taken away from those that remain.

"It is supremely arrogant of the Government to meddle in people's lives in this way. They should be supporting the network instead."

Julia is supporting an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling on the Government to leave the POCA with the Post Office.

She has collected over 1,000 signatures from people across Falmouth and Camborne supporting the EDM.

Rob Hendry, the sub-postmaster at Four Lanes, said: "There appears to be no desire on the part of the Government to help Post Offices.

"But without them, people in places like Four Lanes will be stuck with no services at all.

"The Government should be introducing new services in the Post Office, not taking them away.

"I can't understand why it isn't doing more to help the network, when it provides a lifeline for so many people."