Postmaster closing branch due to rising costs

Sean Sherman watched his father run a post office in Brighton during the 1980s

A postmaster says rising thefts and increasing running costs mean he is being forced to close his post office in East Sussex.

Sean Sherman took on the post office in Islingword Road, Brighton, in 2015, after a career managing museums for local governments across the UK.

“We are here to help," he said. "Whether that’s elderly people who can’t fill out a form or young people who have never sent a letter before."

But after nine years, Mr Sherman will hand back the keys, saying soaring overheads have made the businesses unsustainable.

“We never really recovered from Covid. Thefts have gone up, it’s been very hard to control, and my overheads are not going to reduce,” he said.

Mr Sherman said that people regularly steal laundry detergent, freezer items and pet foods.

He said that roughly £100 of stock went missing a week in 2023, but this has increased to between £300 and £400 each week in 2024.

Mr Sherman’s father ran a post office in nearby Elm Grove in the 1980s. Since then, the number of branches in the UK has almost halved.

Mr Sherman said serving the community was in his DNA

“I took on the post office because it was an environment I knew. Serving the community was in my DNA, it has become like a family,” said Mr Sherman, who employs five people at his branch.

“The staff go above and beyond. We are all a bit in shock, it’s going to take a while for it to sink in. It’s a way of life, it’s not just a job.”

“To those who supported us, I want to say thank you. We will miss you.”

Mr Sherman is retiring and his post office will close on 27 July.

The number of standard post offices in the UK decreased by 931 between 2013 and 2023.

However, the number of outreach post offices, which are part-time services at community locations or mobile vans, increased from 1,065 in 2013 to 1,923 last year, a total of 858.