Last Post Office in town centre to close
The Post Office is urgently looking for a replacement branch after TG Jones is boarded up.
**Last Post Office in town centre to close**
**The Post Office in Telford Centre will close on 2 January**
The final Post Office in a town centre is due to shut after it was announced that dozens of high street shops would close.
In July, it was announced that up to 150 TG Jones branches, the former high street business of WHSmith, would close as part of a major restructuring. One of those was the shop in Telford Centre in Shropshire, which means the Post Office branch there will now also close.
The Post Office is scheduled to close on 2 January, a week before the TG Jones store itself is boarded up.
A Post Office spokesperson told the BBC they fully recognised "the challenging trading conditions that TG Jones and many other High Street retailers are facing at the moment".
They added that they were already searching for a replacement branch "as soon as possible", although the process could take about six months.
In the meantime, they said customers could use alternative branches across Telford, including at Alma Avenue, Fourth Avenue and Oakengates.
A TG Jones spokesperson said the company's "focus now is on supporting those affected and continuing to serve customers throughout the closure period".
Shoppers at Telford Centre were split over whether a Post Office was still needed in the centre of town.
Scott Green from Dudley said he believed it was "still convenient for people to have a Post Office [and] all the facilities of the traditional Post Offices of the past".
Pensioner Beverley Stevens, from Leegomery near Telford, agreed, adding that she felt "safer" using the branch in Telford Centre.
"We should not be told where to go to a post office," Stevens said.
Scott Green said it was "still convenient" to have access to a Post Office
"I think you feel safer especially with us pensioners we still like to deal with proper money and and pay things off at the post office get your pensions and all that," she said.
But Helen Watson from Lawley, Telford, said she thought the Post Office was not as necessary as it once was.
"I use the post office for, apart from dropping of parcels, to get foreign money but there are other places you could do that," she said.
"I occasionally get stamps there [but] you can get those from supermarkets, so is it necessary?"
The town's Labour MP Shaun Davies has called for plans to find a replacement branch in the town centre to be "urgently set out".
He said he had contacted the Post Office directly to seek clarity and to work out what arrangements are being made so people living in the town centre "can continue to have access to services".
"If there is going to be a gap between the existing branch closing and a new service opening, I want that gap to be kept as short as possible," he added.