Post Office Ltd have announced that their proposed move of Acocks Green’s Post Office from its current location (1100 Warwick Road) to 1131 Warwick Road will go ahead. The current site will close at 5.30pm on 11th March 2015, with the new branch opening at 9am on Thursday 12th March.

As discussed in previous posts the move over the road will involve a number of changes in the way it operates:

On the positive side opening hours will be considerably longer : 7am to 7pm Monday to Saturday (apart from on the 11th March 2015), against 8.30am to 6pm currently. A welcome and new aspect of the move announced today is that the retail offer in the new location will be a WHSmith Local, a store that many in Acocks Green have long wanted.

On the downside, the new Post Office branch will no longer be a Crown Post Office. In practice the only difference this makes is that Home Office Digital Application Services will no longer be available – you will have to go to Solihull or the main Birmingham Post Office for this service. The new location is also not as good as the current site, though it will improve somewhat as a result of the work which is currently underway in the Village.

While I am disappointed by the decision, I’m proud of the large cross  community effort which was made to retain the current location. This included both forensic investigation of the proposals, especially by members of Acocks Green Focus Group (in particular Julia Larden) and a 573 person petition submitted by John Hemming MP. A big part of the investigations into the proposals focussed on the retail offer, which at the time seemed likely to be Cost Cutters or Spar, which was not seen as credible by local residents. The eventual decision to go with WH Smith Local may well be a positive result of this work.

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