Countdown to the last post

By Dion Teasdale
HEALESVILLE residents will soon learn if postal services in the town are to be cut.
Australia Post will make a decision about the future of Saturday morning trading at its Healesville Walk Shopping Centre outlet after Christmas.
In September Australia Post announced it would terminate weekend postal services at the shopping centre outlet due to poor patronage.
After an outcry from local business and community groups, the postal authority did a back flip and said it would continue Saturday morning trading for a three-month trial period.
At the time Australia Post state communications manager Janice Mascini said Healesville residents had an opportunity to demonstrate their support for the continuation of the service.
Since then traders in the Healesville Walk Shopping Centre have banded together to conduct a petition calling on Australia Post to keep the weekend service running.
Sanctuary Lotto proprietor Graeme Williams said traders in the shopping centre had now collected close to 700 signatures from community members.
He said he felt confident that the community had demonstrated its support for the continuation of the service through the petition and increased patronage.
“The post office has been very busy on Saturday mornings for the past few months,” he said.
“Shoppers and traders realise how important it is to have the service continue. Nobody wants it to close.”
Mr Williams said the petition was in the process of being collated and that copies would be sent to Australia Post’s head office in Melbourne.
“We hope the petition will show Australia Post just how much Healesville needs and wants this service to continue and that it would be unfair to terminate it,” he said. Ms Mascini said a decision about the future of the service would be made at the end of December.
“We’ll be sticking to our original timeframe and will assess how well the service has been patronised after Christmas,” she said.
“We’ll be looking at the customer figures for the past three months and will then be able to work out if the service is still viable.”
Ms Mascini said while the petition conducted by shopping centre traders was not part of the criteria for making decisions, it would be taken into consideration.