[Ken Moss]

I feel I have to wade in here with a positive comment to defend our poor Post Offices! It's Royal Mail that is to blame here, let's not forget.

I'll forgive a little slippage in service over the Christmas period, no doubt exacerbated by the poor weather conditions, and just point out that a First Class stamp still gets things from A to B in an extremely cheap manner. I often have to send out parcel batches of over 50 items and the Postmistress in Rishton will simply take everything and do it over the course of the day so as not to hold up the queues. It saves me waiting, it saves holding everyone up and the cost is a damn sight cheaper than driving each parcel to its location.

If you think there are problems now, pray that it never gets privatised. I was watching part of the debate yesterday on BBC Parliament and it was briefly mentioned that a Post Bank is not out of the question.

I personally still feel this to be the best all-round solution to the problem and would give the high street banks a good hard kick in the nuts too.