Cornwall County Council has begun the process for a judicial review of the controversial proposals to close up to 62 Post Office branches in Cornwall and is calling on Post Office bosses to abandon the current consultation exercise and delay making any decisions until a new fair and lawful consultation exercise has been carried out.
County Councillors voted unanimously to seek a judicial review of the legality of the current consultation exercise at their meeting on 22 July. Since then leading counsel has advised the Council that there are serious flaws in the Post Office’s consultation process which render it potentially unfair. .
“The law states that consultation exercises must be fair” said Adam Paynter, Deputy Leader of Cornwall County Council. “This means that consultees must be given enough information to enable them to make an intelligent response and this information must be accurate and not misleading “.
“We are arguing that the Post Office’s consultation document for Cornwall is both flawed and materially misleading. It contains a number of major errors, such as the wrong population figures for the county and including the Isles of Scilly and Dartmoor in the Cornwall plan”.
The County Council is also expressing concern at the confusion over possible linkages between the closure programmes in Cornwall and Dorset. Despite e mail correspondence with the Post Office suggesting a clear link between “replacement closures” in Cornwall and Dorset, the consultation document does not make this clear. Instead it is presented as a stand alone plan dealing with closures in Cornwall only.
“This is seriously misleading and does not enable consultees to direct their representations to which branch or branches, if any, should close instead of their local branch” said Adam Paynter. “It means that any community trying to persuade the Post Office not to close their local branch are likely to point to alternative candidates for closure in Cornwall alone, rather than looking at the picture for Cornwall and Dorset combined”.
“We feel that these flaws are fundamental to the fairness of the whole process. As a result we have written to the Post Office asking them to abandon the current consultation exercise in Cornwall and to abstain from making any decision to close any branches in the county unless and until a fair and lawful consultation exercise has first been carried out”.
In its Judicial review pre-action protocol letter the County Council requests Post Office Limited to supply an urgent explanation of the manner in which the figure of 700,000 residents was arrived at, including whether it includes residents who live outside Cornwall in the Isles of Scilly, Dartmoor or elsewhere, and the precise mathematical or other exercise carried out to define the branches identified for closure or for replacement by an Outreach service.
It also asks for copies of all documents generated internally within Post Office Limited and Royal Mail plc and documents passing between Post Office Limited and / or Royal Mail plc and any central government department or agency, Postwatch, Royal Mail plc and Dorset County Council concerning the decision to link closure of post office branches in Dorset with closure of post office branches in Cornwall , and vice versa,.
The Council is also asking for a copy of any list of “reserve” branches intended to close in possible substitution for branches among the 49 branches currently proposed for closure in Cornwall.
The Council has requested a response from Post Office Limited by 4pm on Wednesday, August 20th .
