A HEREFORDSHIRE postmaster fighting to stop the government from scrapping Post Office services has presented a petition at Downing Street.

The government is planning to cancel the provision of road tax services, threatening the existence of rural post offices across the UK.

Tim Allen, the Kington postmaster, says this is an important source of income for post offices as well as a key service for people who do not use the internet. Mr Allen started a petition calling on the government to abandon its plans.

The petition, which has almost 1,000 signatures, reads: “The DVLA has announced its plan to withdraw road tax services from post offices. This decision will leave individuals with no other option but to travel long distances to access essential government services.”

After his trip to Downing Street with the petition, he said: “There’s been a general erosion of the things that post offices can do. We’ve seen the erosion of the Department of Work and Pensions and all kinds of things have been taken away from us.

“Really it should be used as a moment to look at what post offices can and should be doing – enabling people to come to us face-to-face. Forcing people online is too fast, too soon.”

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Post offices are already struggling to survive on narrow margins, despite providing important local services, especially in rural areas where banks have closed. According to the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters (NFSP), around 3,000 post office branches could close if they lost their Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) contract.

Unless the government changes its mind, the DVLA plans to end its contract with the Post Office on March 31, 2024. Currently, post offices handle over six million DVLA transactions every year.

DVLA services enable people to pay their taxes, renew their driving licenses and apply for international driving permits. The government has increasingly pushed drivers online, causing the Post Office’s share of DVLA work to drop from 70 per cent to around seven per cent.

A DVLA spokesperson said: “The Post Office currently provide a limited range of DVLA’s services and an extension to the current contract has been agreed until March 31, 2024.

 “We want our customers to be able to access our services as quickly and as easily as possible, and the role of front office counter services will form part of the considerations of any future service offerings.”