Our work is centred on the Government's review of the rural post office network.

We funded Rural Service Support, to help provide national and local organisations with on-line access to experts who can help them plan for the future.

This rural|net service signposts organisations to solutions that may help them identify alternative ways of providing services for their communities.

We've also gathered together these case studies presenting alternative methods of providing Post Office services.

We've been involved with the following research:

• The Future of Rural Post Offices - Focus group research in Cumbria and Dorset to gain an insight into how rural communities view the post office and how they wish to be involved in any public consultation on the future of the rural network.
  

• Joint research with Postwatch on the rural and urban deprived network . 
  

• State of the Network - recommendations for the future of the social post office network , a report produced by the Postwatch Counters Advisory Group.
  

• In June 2007 we published 'The economic significance of post offices combined with a village shop'. Over 3/4 of post offices in rural England have an attached business, with almost 1/2 attached to a village shop.

State of the Countryside 2007 showed a continuing decline in the provision of post offices. It's important that those who need such services are not further disadvantaged by any future rationalisation of the rural post office network and that equitable access to postal and other services continues to be maintained, although the ways in which these are provided may change.

Other relevant research includes Post Office Limited’s report on innovative ways of providing post office services in rural areas .   The report looks at a number of pilot studies where post office services were provided in more than 50 villages through a range of ways other than the traditional village branch office. They included:

• partnership with local rural service providers such as mobile libraries and the police

• “hub and spoke” arrangements where a subpostmaster running a branch in a larger village provides post office services in smaller communities in premises such as a pub or a village hall

• mobile services involving a van with online links to the network.