Vicar warnsover village post office closures

Dec 14 2007 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

We are deeply concerned about the impact of the closure

A VICAR has said the closure of a west Wirral post office would be the “death knell of independent living” for many elderly members of his parish.

The rector of Heswall, Rev Dr Jonathan Gibbs, is the latest to speak out about the proposed closure of the post office in the lower Village of Heswall.

Last month Sir Paul McCartney used words from a famous Beatles song in backing a campaign to save a Wirral post office from closure.

“Please help,” he said in a statement read out by his younger brother Mike, who is Wirral’s cultural ambassador, outside the post office in Village Road, Lower Heswall.

Rev Gibbs was among a group of community representatives from Lower Heswall who took their fight to save the post office to a meeting in London with the minister responsible, Pat McFadden MP.

The clergyman and Mr Stuart Marsden, chairman of the Heswall Society, were invited to the meeting by Wirral South MP, Ben Chapman, who had raised concerns about the closure of the branch at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Gordon Brown invited him to meet the minister to express his concerns.

Rev Gibbs said: “We are deeply concerned about the impact of the closure on local residents. It would be the death-knell of independ- ent living for many of them.”

liammurphy