A concerned constituent asked Post Office Limited for a copy of all the submissions they received about the Norham Post Office under Freedom of Information rules and when he received these he was very surprised that there was no copy of a submission from Sir Alan or from Berwick Borough Council. He immediately contacted the MP's office and was sent a copy of Sir Alan Beith's submission. He then confirmed that this had not been sent out to him by Post Office Limited.
Sir Alan and Dr Clare Mills held a meeting with Adrian Wales and Matt Silcock, the Post Office managers in charge of the closures scheme, on Monday, October 20, and raised concerns about the apparent loss of documents despite the issuing of a receipt for Sir Alan's submission. They also pointed to comments in the decision booklet issued by Post Office which indicated that some submissions had not been taken into account.
Now, despite assurances from Mr Wales and Mr Silcock that this would be provided urgently, no information has been given to demonstrate that the consultation has been carried out correctly.
Sir Alan Beith said: "I specifically asked Mr Wales and Mr Silcock how the thousands of submissions sent in to them were handled. They told me that submissions were collated and a summary document created, which was then used by Mr Wales as the basis for his decision on whether each specific post office would remain open, be replaced with outreach services including the mobile service, or closed.
"I asked for a copy of this summary document and was assured it would be sent to me, yet despite reminders we have not received this information.
"I am very concerned that the decision making process has not taken account of all the submissions made. I will continue to push for the information I need to be reassured that the process was handled correctly.
"It is now up to Post Office Limited to prove that their procedures were effective."
A Post Office spokesperson told the Advertiser: "The list of submissions provided in response to requests about consultation includes those which refer to a particular branch. However, where a submission relates to a number of branches, we should extract the appropriate reference and include it in the list. In this case that didn't happen and the administrative error is being corrected. We can confirm that submissions from Sir Alan Beith and the council have been received and taken into consideration.
"We have also been in correspondence with Sir Alan Beith over his additional queries."
*It has been confirmed that North Sunderland Post Office will close on Wednesday, November 19.