Post offices across the country could be decimated by the loss of DVLA business, according to a Perthshire sub-postmaster.
Lewis Simpson, vice-president of the Dundee and district branch of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, said proposals to take the distribution of licences away from local counters would have a devastating effect.
Although post offices currently carry out a small number of jobs for the DVLA, such as providing drivers with tax discs and driving licence applications, a new contract under negotiation is far bigger.
It would include processing almost everything to do with a car including change of ownership details, SORN off-road notifications and changes to number plates.
The federation has been running a national campaign to secure the bigger contract amid fears if it is lost, the existing work will also go.
Mr Simpson said his own trade in Scone will be reduced by around 20% if a new DVLA contract is given to a private contractor.
He said: ”Successive governments for years have campaigned to close us down, throughout all my time here. What we want to highlight is the hypocrisy of the government, which has been talking up the post office on the one hand and doing nothing to support it on the other.
”If governments want the post offices viable, they have to give us work to do. The viability of all post offices is at risk in the current economic circumstances but this one amounts to 20% of our work.
”Sub-post offices sustain full and part-time jobs in the community but we won’t be able to do that if this continues.”
Mr Simpson will meet local MP Pete Wishart today to discuss the campaign, which has seen thousands of protest postcards submitted to local branches.
He said: ”I know that there is massive support for this campaign by members of the public. I have already received several hundred cards from post office customers in Blairgowrie and Blair Atholl and now the voice of Scone customers will be added to the growing opposition to the Westminster Government’s plans.
”In communities across Perthshire the public have demonstrated their support for their local post offices time and time again and this latest campaign to save post office services is no different.
”Our local post offices perform a very significant and widely recognised social role in our communities and the network cannot be looked upon by the UK Government as simply another retail business.
”This DVLA contract is an important step in increasing the sustainability of the post office network at a time when UK Government reforms are giving further cause for concern.
”We all want to see a secure future for post offices, but they must be able to provide a range of government services including driving licenses, tax discs and passport services.
”The coalition has pledged to use post offices as the ‘front office for government’, so they must deliver on this pledge and improve the range of services available in the local post office. Anything else will simply mean pulling the rug out from under businesses already struggling to survive in difficult times.”