Closure Update
Information seems to have dried up following the dramatic announcement by Royal Mail to rid Gloucestershire of 420 jobs. The CWU have had very constructive meetings with Parmjit Dhanda MP (Gloucester), David Drew MP (Stroud) and Martin Horwood MP (Cheltenham). All three MP’s have agreed to back our campaign to retain Gloucester Mail Centre.
We have submitted “draft motions” to the Labour Party on both the Gloucester City and County Councils urging support from the councils for our campaign. These motions will be debated at the next council meetings, which are scheduled for 22nd November (County Council) and 30th November (City Council). We will be looking for as many CWU members to attend those meetings and ask the City and County Council’s to support our campaign. We will seek volunteers closer to the meetings.
We have also received the full support from the Communication Managers Association (Managers Union). The following statement was sent to us by the CMA Branch Secretary.
“We ( CMA committee ) feel that we can endorse your current campaign, subject to ratification by our members at a meeting at the end of the month, to discuss this & other serious issues facing our members. I can assure you this will be a formality.
We believe your campaign to be a sensible, positive constructive one that we can sign up to and look forward to sharing information & developing a strategy in serving all stakeholders with an interest in retaining a Mail centre in Glos”.
We are very pleased that the CMA have agreed to join our fight and we will be seeking a meeting with them in the near future to talk through our strategy and seek their input.
We have had some fantastic press coverage through the Citizen newspaper over the last few weeks, with articles featuring CWU members and the impact the closure would have on them. There have also been many letters printed by CWU members and members of the public. We need these letters to continue so if you haven't written to your local paper yet please do so.
Also get your family members, friends and neighbours to write in. The more letters they receive the more public support we will get. If we are going to win this campaign we need the public to back us and keep the campaign alive and in the public eye.

As mentioned previously, the branch has started a campaign website. It is not quite ready yet as we need to put a few things on it. However there is some information and press reports. The web address is www.savegloucestermailcentre.co.uk

We have a copy of a letter from Mr Devanny (Area Manager) to Parmjit Dhanda MP dated 26th September 2006 which states:-
“Royal Mail today announced plans to extend the Mail Centre at Rowland Hill Close, Dorcan, Swindon as part of £20 million development project. A planning application has been submitted to Swindon Borough Council seeking permission to expand the current site”.
The information we received from the “Let’s Talkabout” briefing states:-
“Next Steps—A planning application to extend the Mail centre is going to be submitted to Swindon Borough Council on 2nd October. The planning authority will then take at least three months to consider this application”.
As of today 10th October 2006 no planning application is shown on Swindon Borough Council’s website and when we spoke to them they confirmed that no application has been received for the re-development of Swindon Mail Centre. What’s going on?

Currently we are expecting to be called to CWU HQ to receive a presentation from Royal Mail. This presentation will provide us with details of the feasibility study. When we have received this information we will share it with you.

We are having many enquiries from CWU members regarding petitions, leaflets and other materials to be distributed to the general public.
Your CWU Reps are keen to get our campaign up and running but we need to ensure our campaign is sustained and more importantly accurate.
So far we have only received sketchy information that the business wants us to know. If we rush into a campaign without the correct information we run the risk of being side stepped by Royal Mail.
As they say “patience is a virtue”, so once we have all the information we need the campaign will be kick started.

Suggested Questions &
Answers—Royal Mail
Q. How much would it cost to redevelop Gloucester Mail Centre?
A. Don’t know, never looked at it.
Q. How do your plans to close Gloucester Mail Centre affect Royal Mail’s Carbon omissions
A. Don’t know but the saving we make will generate millions of pounds in savings.
Q. As a part time worker, will I be offered the same hours.
A. With YOUR flexibility everyone will be offer a job which is SUITABLE to us.
Q. What are the public transport links to Swindon like?
A. No idea.
Q. How much is the GL4 3AA site worth.
A. Loads of money.