On Death Row in a Welsh Village

Posted on November 17th, 2007 filed in Corporations, Politics, Welsh Assembly

Wandering around Abercynon a year ago we were struck by a small post office in Glancynon Terrace. The street scene we stumbled upon seemed like a typical scene from the post-modern South Wales Valleys. The terraced houses knitted together tightly with so very few shops… a newsagents on the corner, a chinese take-away, and - thank the heavens! - a friendly post office.

Now fast forward a year to the news announcing the list of Post Offices that the powers-that-be would like to close in Glamorgan and the Valleys. On that list is poor old Glancynon Post Office, in the village of Abercynon, Rhondda Cynon Taf. It’s almost like putting the heart of the village on Death Row for the Post Office is at the heart of the village.

There are a few weeks of “public consultation” however this is merely a public relations charade. The decision will be bulldozed through come what may by a corporation now being run into the ground according to ‘market imperatives’ (or whatever other jargon they are currently spouting in the name of economic rationalisation).

To their credit, the most vociferous political opposition to the Post Office closures - at least here in the Cynon Valley - has come from certain voices within Plaid Cymru.

Leanne Wood AM writes in her blog recently, thus :

“The Post Office Network Change Programme is the direct result of Labour Government policy in London, and is the latest stage in their rationalisation agenda. The Welsh Government can not intervene. This shows another example of the weakness of the current constitutional settlement. Plaid argues that not Welsh Post Office should close as a result of a Westminster driven policy agenda. 3,500 Post Offices closed under the last Tory Government, and over 4,000 have closed under New Labour.

Labour claim that the closures are needed to create a viable network. Plaid believes that that uninhibited competition in markets is not always the best way of securing the universal service provision of our public services, particularly in isolated and deprived communities.”

The “rationalisation agenda” that Leanne Wood refers to above leads to the centralising and monopolising of services, of power and of control. It is an argument Vandana Shiva discusses in her writings on Monocultures of the Mind.

“The primary threat to nature and people today comes from centralising and monopolising power and control. Not until diversity is made the logic of production will there be a chance for sustainability, justice and peace. Cultivating and conserving diversity is no luxury in our times: it is a survival imperative.” - Vandana Shiva