Lanark Post Office is put up for sale

LANARK’S one surviving Post Office has been put up for sale, reviving fears that the town is in danger of being left without this service for the first time in over 170 years.

While the intention is to continue to operate it until the sale is completed, local users will recall that the St Leonard Street office has had a troubled recent past with a fraud investigation seeing it closed for nearly a week in 2009 and another scare over its future coming the year after.

The incidents ironically came hard on the heels of Post Office Ltd’s controversial decision to close down the area’s two sub-post offices, in the Westport and New Lanark, stating confidently at the time that the burgh only needed one Post Office.

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At the time of the 2009 crisis, it installed a temporary `emergency’ postmaster to keep the service going and it is understood that, whatever happens with the sale, there is a legal and moral obligation on the national Post Office organisation to maintain a branch in the area.

However, the news of the sale has inevitably met with a nervous reaction from the users, given that the town’s entire Post Office service is provided via the single St Leonard Street branch.

The news of the sale came via the company handling the transaction, the Glasgow branch of Christie and Co.

It stressed that this was no crisis sale and that the branch was, in fact, a highly profitable concern.

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It is seeking offers of £99,000 and above for the business which now includes a retail section, selling cigarettes and other non-postal business goods.

For more on this story pick up a copy of the Lanark Gazette which is in the shops now.

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