SIR, For the past four years I have been the area field worker for the rural charity, Virsa, which covers the interests of those villages in England and Wales which face the threat of losing their only remaining combined shop and post office.

My area extends to Cumbria and North Lancashire, and since it is a part-time post I have to concentrate mainly on the marginal shops. However, I do try to get out and see a selection of the better performing village shops from time to time. In recent months many owners of combined village shops and post offices have expressed disquiet to me over the forthcoming switch of cash benefits to automated credit transfer from April this year.

Officials from the HQ of the post office in London claim that this important changeover will probably happen fairly painlessly to the average benefit recipient. One can, in future, collect through one of three different options: (1) a commercial account with one of their official' banking partners; (2) a basic bank account with one of the high street banks; and (3) a post office card account.

The latter scheme run by the post office itself is clearly aimed to pick up only a minority of benefit recipients. There is no overdraft facility and the account can only be used for cash withdrawals since no cheque books will be permitted.

I understand that the post office card account will be used in conjunction with a card machine. Frail old people must expect to remember their pin number and be physically capable of handling the machine; not exactly a user-friendly device.

How do customers decide to select the right option for them? They cannot ask the advice of the postmaster. Instead they are expected to read the guidance leaflet and then talk it over with relatives and friends. The whole exercise is clearly the work of Whitehall bureaucrats. Perhaps the transfer to the new system will go more easily than I expect but advance consultation has been poor in this respect. In particular, what worries me is the knock-on effect on the viability of many good village retail businesses in my area. The concern of many rural postmasters extends to several visited in South Lakeland as well. A significantly reduced footfall to the local village post office seems a likely result.

As it is, anecdotal impressions suggest that village shop food expenditure from post office customers in Cumbria is well below that achieved in the South of England. Any serious reduction in food and other convenience goods expenditure could have implications for the long-term survival of the existing network of village shop-based post offices in Cumbria.

In the past four years I have seen a number of shops closed in Cumbria. The trend is already downwards and no doubt there are more closures to come.

I have one last message for South Lakeland rural villagers: if as a result of all these changes you do not visit the village shop with a post office as frequently as before, try to remember their other key role as providers of food and other goods and services to your local community.

Desmond Hopwood

Kendal

January 9, 2003 14:30