Post Office confirms Bognor branch will move

Paul Wells with some of the petition sheets opposing plans to franchise Bognor Regis Post Office SUS-160217-112711001

Its announcement follows a six-week consultation and petition to keep it on the High Street.

In a statement it said the relocation will see ‘extra opening hours and seven-days a week service’ in a ‘modern open-plan branch’.

The move, ‘around 220 metres from its current site’, is expected to open on November 17, 2016.

Roger Gale, general manager for the Post Office’s Crown branch network, said: “That the change would help to ensure the branch is commercially viable into the future and therefore protect Post Office services for customers in Bognor Regis.

He added: “Our customers’ needs continue to change and we are responding to that, taking the right action to sustain our services for years to come,”

The final plans, said to have ‘shaped’ by the consultation, will see the Post Office ‘have its own designated area in the store, with new automatic doors installed at the main London Road entrance and, subject to survey, the rear entrance’.

The Post Office statement added: “The branch will include low level counters, PIN pads, hearing loops and customer seating.”

And that ‘existing branch staff have the right to transfer their employment to WHSmith in line with TUPE legislation and their options are being discussed with them individually’.