Promise of 'Mystery Shopping' at local Post Offices

4.03.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 24th Feb 2005

Following complaints by local residents and Twickenham MP Vincent Cable of long queues at local post offices - particularly Hampton, Hampton Wick and Hampton Hill - the London consumer watch dog Post Watch - has agreed to monitor the queues more closely with, undercover, "mystery" visits.

Until two years ago, post offices had a five minute waiting time target attached to their licence. But this was dropped as unenforceable. Since then, numerous branch closures have put greater pressure on remaining branches.

Vincent Cable, MP, said: "when the closures were pushed through a few months ago, the local community was given assurances that the remaining offices would be upgraded, if necessary, to accommodate more customers. Yet I understand that there are serious bottlenecks at busy times like Saturday mornings. The Post Office have treated their customers very shoddily and need to be kept under pressure".