On 21st April this year, a Post Office van started to call weekly in Barrow in the Three Crowns car park. This was the first post office service in Barrow since the post office at the petrol station closed in August 2021. Everyone in Barrow was seemingly very pleased that, even though it was only for two hours a week, we had this essential service back in operation.

The post office service was provided by Jag Aytain, postmaster at Linton Post Office near Swadlincote and Barrow was just one of 22 stops in Jag’s busy weekly schedule. However, by the end of August, the van had stopped calling in the village.

Barrow Voice’s roving reporter set out to find the reasons why and finally caught up with Jag at his stop in Appleby Magna in the Crown Inn car park.

I asked Jag what the reasons were for stopping his visits to Barrow. His answers were:

At the time, Jag’s wife was heavily pregnant and became quite seriously ill. This meant that Jag had to miss some of his post office duties to look after her.

Jag had also arrived late a few times in Barrow due to traffic issues. He is obliged by Post Office Ltd to vary his routes for security reasons, and he encountered road closures and delays. He received verbal abuse from two or three customers who were not happy at having to wait for his arrival.

Then, when Jag was at his lowest point, worrying about his wife’s health, he was informed by his employer, Post Office Ltd. that both Barrow Parish Council and our MP Jane Hunt had complained to them about the intermittent service. He said that enough was enough, and he resigned from the Barrow upon Soar van stop.

Jag is continuing with all his other van stops, and says he has not had any complaints from any other villages.

The Parish Council says that they received a telephone call from a customer complaining about the intermittent service and they raised
the issue with Post Office Ltd. The issues raised were the van arriving late or not at all and the lack of communication to customers.

So, the reason for Barrow losing its post office is the complaining nature of some of our residents, and the way official channels were used to follow up on complaints. Someone from the Parish Council could easily have popped down to talk to Jag on a Thursday morning, and they would then have discovered his very difficult personal circumstances.

So, where does Barrow go from here?

It is clear that Jag will not be bringing his van back to Barrow. He is in the process of scheduling a replacement stop near Lichfield, and he will be moving the Long Whatton and Kegworth stops to another day to accommodate this. However, Jag did say that he has staff who could operate an Outreach Post Office in Barrow if we could find a suitable venue.

There was a meeting scheduled at Jane Hunt’s offices on the 28th October with Post Office Ltd. where the future of a post office in Barrow will be discussed (this is too late for Barrow Voice to report on but we hope to be able to give an update in the next issue). These discussions will hopefully include the options of an outreach post office as well as advertising for a permanent postmaster for our village.

Keith Butler