A meeting was held in the village hall on Wednesday 13th February to discuss what could be done to save our local Post Office from closure.
58 residents attended the meeting to discuss what action the village could take to avoid the closure of our post office with a further 20 apologies received.
The meeting was given facts and information relevant to the closure including that Post Office Ltd was currently making a loss of £4 million per week of which our local branch was contributing approx 0.002%, a few 10s of pounds.
As part of the closure package the government have stated that 95% of people living in rural communities must remain within 3 miles of a Post Office access point. Upton has been told that it has two points within the limit. Blewbury is the nearest branch but to get to that branch taking into account the current bus service and the branch opening times will require a round trip taking 3½ hours and will require over a mile of walking between the bus stop and the post office. The alternative branch that comes within the 3 mile government guideline is the Cockcroft branch in Didcot to which there is no bus service.
It was agreed to organise a petition to be signed by as many residents as possible and to send copies to the Post Office, to our local M.P. and to the Prime Minister.
It was also agreed to ask as many residents as possible to write letters of protest to the Post Office and to their M.P. To assist with the letter writing it was agreed to set up a section of the website to contain relevant facts and information, sample letters and links to letters already sent in.