Port St Mary: Village post office to close as 'customers move online'

Both Rushen MHKs said the closure was out of step with the needs of the community

A village in the south of the Isle of Man is set to lose its post office later this month after no one applied to take the service over.

Counter services will cease in Port St Mary at the end of the current sub-postmaster's contract on 29 October.

Isle of Man Post Office said it was driven by "customers increasingly choosing online alternatives".

The areas's MHKs have accused the organisation of "throwing away" the social value of the facility.

The closure of the Port St Mary counter, which is based inside a newsagents, follows similar moves in Ballasalla and Sulby and is in line with the post office board's retail strategy to reduce the number of unprofitable outlets across the island.

Announcing the decision, the post office said it would make the nearby Port Erin post office "a stronger and more sustainable office for all customers, commercial partners and the sub-postmaster".

'Community value'

In a statement, Rushen MHKs Juan Watterson and Michelle Haywood said it was "disappointing but hardly surprising" there were no responses to the appeal for a new postmaster, as it had only been advertised for two weeks.

The pair said there was "a persistent failure to recognise the community value of having town post offices".

Praising current the sub-postmaster for going "above and beyond" by agreeing to extend the contract after initially giving notice to terminate it in July 2020, the statement said the post office board could not "see the social value that is being thrown away" by the loss of services in the village.

Efforts should have been made for the current operators to "flexibly" maintain services, it added.

A post office spokesman said those who use Treasury's MiCard system to collect benefits and pensions in cash will be written to so they can arrange to use an alternative location in future.