Vanishing jobs

Royal Mail’s plans to transfer Oxford’s sorting to Swindon will now kick in. From next month, some of Oxford’s post will be transferred to Swindon, with all scheduled to go by the end of June. Bob Cullen, of the CWU Union at the doomed Cowley sorting office on the Oxford Business Park, said: “The sorting office will close on June 26, with a total loss of 300-320 Cowley jobs.”

He added that the atmosphere at the Oxford Mail Centre, where about one million items of mail are sorted daily, was “dismal”.

“There is no sense in the move at all. It’s just an attack on the unions. Now the Cowley postal workers are paying for it with their jobs and the Oxfordshire public will find themselves with a third-rate service,” he said.

Richard Hall, of Royal Mail, said: “So far, 78 of the original 450 workers have volunteered to move to Swindon and between 40 and 50 have taken delivery jobs in the OX postal area. But we don’t know precise redundancy figures yet.”

With the To Let signs about to go up, post workers — already disgruntled by Government plans to sell 30 per cent of Royal Mail — are now wondering who will be likely to rent the huge, soon-to-be-vacant Oxford Mail Centre.

Mr Hall confirmed that Royal Mail owned the lease on the Cowley centre and was looking to sell it but would not be drawn on the question.

When Royal Mail announced plans to uproot Oxford’s sorting office in 2007, in the wake of several acrimonious wild-cat strkes, opposition came from Oxford East MP Andrew Smith and the entire city council.

The then Lord Mayor, John Tanner, said: “How daft to post a letter in, say, Littlemore, and take it by lorry to Swindon for sorting. Has Royal Mail not heard of global warming?”

The Royal Mail move is only one of many job cuts in Cowley. The closure of the Woolworths branch in Templars Square spelled 21 redundancies, then there were the 71 at the charity Oxfam.

Now the Potato Council, which promotes British potato growing and marketing, is closing its Oxford headquarters. The council has become part of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board and will move to Stoneleigh in Warwickshire at the end of July.

The council, funded by a statutory levy on potato growers, has been in Oxford since 1955. The offices at Nash House, Oxford Business Park, will close with the loss of 33 jobs.

Obviously all this is bleak news for property company Goodman, which in 2005 bought the Oxford Business Park from Arlington, the property arm of BAe, one-time owner of the old Rover car plant, but there was no one available to comment on the park’s future.

Val Smith, Oxford City Councillor for Blackbird Leys, said: “I am very concerned about the job losses in the area. I would urge anyone needing help or advice to contact their councillor or visit one of the advice centres in Rose Hill or Blackbird Leys. JobCentre Plus are being very proactive about contacting people who have lost their jobs.

“But the recession won’t last forever and we look forward to better times returning because Cowley is a great place to live and work.”

Only time will show whether the management or the unions are right about the future of our postal services — will it be better or worse?

But anyone worried about traffic jams caused by Royal Mail juggernauts on the A420 to Swindon might like to bring more work to another Oxford-based Royal Mail office: Door to Door Opt Outs at Kingsmead House, OX1 1RX, where you can register not to receive junk mail delivered to your door by your postman — via Swindon.