Sidwell Street Post Office to close as WHSmith shops sale raises risk of Exeter city centre counter service disappearance

One of Exeter city centre’s two remaining post offices is about to close at the same time as the retailer providing the other is sold, raising the prospect that the city centre’s last Post Office counter may soon disappear.

The Sidwell Street Post Office, operated by Morrisons, will close at the same time as the retailer shuts up shop on 14 April after making a loss at the shop on the corner of York Road.

Morrisons announced the closure last week, along with sixteen other similar stores and a number of in-store facilities.

Four days later, a £76 million deal to sell 480 WHSmith UK High Street retail stores to private equity firm Modella Capital was agreed.

The branch of WHSmith in Guildhall Shopping Centre houses Exeter Post Office, seen by many as providing the city’s principal post office counter service.

Exeter Post Office in Guildhall Shopping Centre WHSmith

When the WHSmith High Street sale was announced in prospect in January, the Communication Workers Union said it feared it could lead to “postal deserts” as more than 200 post offices are operated by WHSmith in High Street stores.

Modella Capital, which was incorporated less than three years ago, also owns Hobbycraft, which it bought last August, and The Original Factory Shop, which it bought in February.

The acquisition of WHSmith’s UK High Street business, which it plans to rebrand as TGJones, will mean the firm owns more than 800 retail stores.

Law firm Browne Jackson, which advised Modella on the deal, said that the newly-branded stores would “keep the same products and services, including the Post Office” while the equity firm “works with the management team to define and execute a strategy to introduce new ranges and other offerings in the future”.

Sidwell Street Post Office in Morrisons Daily

Exeter lost its remaining Crown Post Office, directly operated by Post Office Limited and offering a full range of services, when its Bedford Street Princesshay branch closed in 2019.

Since then all Exeter’s post offices, including the branch in Guildhall Shopping Centre, have been operated by franchisees such as WHSmith or by sub-postmasters, who are typically independent business owners.

There were 1,765 Crown Post Offices in 1969, when the Post Office Act abolished the state postal system that had been established in the 17th century. As of March last year only 115 were left. The government says, the “ambition” is to operate the post office network on a “fully franchised basis in time, as this is a more sustainable model”.

The number of post offices of all types has also fallen significantly. There were 24,300 in 1946 since when as many as 1,600 have closed in a single year.

Around 11,800 remain, but this includes a growing number of “outreach” branches which are typically only open part-time and sometimes mobile, and “drop & collect” branches which focus on prepaid parcels and bill payments rather than providing a post office counter service.

These limited branches made up more than a fifth of the network by last year.

The eight remaining Exeter branches, besides the Guildhall Shopping Centre, are dotted across the city in Cowick Street, Okehampton Road and Broadway, in Pinhoe Road, Heavitree Fore Street and Burnthouse Lane, and in Alphington village and Sylvania Drive on Stoke Hill.

Their service levels and opening hours vary significantly. Sylvania Drive Post Office only opens for two hours each week, on Thursday afternoons.

Post Office Limited says it is “working hard to keep any period of closure to a minimum” at the Sidwell Street branch and is “currently investigating” options to “reinstate a post office service to the local community”.

It says it would “welcome any applications from potential retail partners interested in running a branch locally on our behalf”.

Questions and comments about the Sidwell Street Post Office closure can be emailed to comments@postoffice.co.uk or sent to “FREEPOST Your Comments” until 29 April.

The government has said it will consult on the future of the post office network in the first half of this year, with a green paper expected soon.