I am contacting you on behalf of Eynsford Parish Council and the village of Eynsford in Kent. We have recently lost our Post Office in the recent round of closures along with that in our neighbouring village Farningham. As you are no doubt aware, this will cause considerable problems for the elderly and less-mobile and much inconvenience for other residents and local business. In addition it is the removal of a local service and we do not wish to see our other local retailers going the same way. I have written to the Post Office about our options regarding having some sort of Outreach Post Office service in the village (or shared between the two villages), but have not had any response yet. I was wondering what advice you could provide on this - i.e. how would an outreach service work, are we likely to get one, is there anything we can do to move the process along?

Not so much a question really,as a thought. A colleague and I were talking about how we might measure the value of a post office in some way that takes into account its wider value to a community (i.e. not just in business terms, but in social terms). For example, the staff at the post office hear things about, say, a villager's health, or some other aspect of a person's life that could usefully be passed on to a neighbour or doctor. I know that this sounds a little bit "snoopy" but this sort of service is provided is is, for obvious reasons, not give a "value" (as far as I know) in terms of the service's wider benefit (because it can't be counted conventionally. We wondered, therefore, if anyone knows of any example of where/how attempts have been made to measure - or at least spot - this type of added value? If it's not available could examples be looked for (and, I bet, found) - perhaps using interviewers to visit a selection of 'at risk' POs - and used as stories/case studies to explain how this type of service is of far greater value than can by measured by conventional (usually financial) means? As I say, just a thought.