I would like to take this opportunity to share with you the key factors that led to the unfortunate demise of Postmasternetwork.

Postmasternetwork launched in 2002 after I spent almost two years researching the market place, formulating the strategy and developing a business plan to be able to attract outside investment.

The first twelve months focused on raising awareness of Postmasternetwork to suppliers and sub postmasters and to encourage the NFSP to support this new initiative and form an alliance. Despite the negative response from the hierarchy at the Federation, sub postmasters started signing up to PMN in their thousands. We were seen as a positive organisation that was trying to help sub postmasters by creating additional revenue streams over their private retail counters.

The business model was working well, Post Office Ltd started to monitor our progress and several meetings were held to discuss ways of them offering their support. This culminated in a meeting with two top executives from Post Office Ltd, at this meeting I was told there was not room for three players in this market and they would have to decide whom they were going to support in the future –the NFSP or PMN. It was evident soon after that PMN was not the chosen partner as the NFSP decided at that time to support “Big Brand” and it was obvious the two parties had formed a much closer alliance.

PMN had always known that the Sub postmaster contract was restrictive, outdated and needed clarification on some grey areas. We needed sub postmasters to be given more commercial freedom as we were receiving some very positive approaches from large retail brands that wished to work with Sub postmasters. These were strong reasons to support the Association of Convenience Stores in presenting a complaint to the Office of Fair Trading in November 2004 on the unfair restrictions of the sub postmaster contract.

As you would expect, this created considerable opposition from the NFSP and POL, both realising the potential ramifications this may cause if the complaint was successful. I do not feel it is appropriate at this time to document all the evidence received of dirty tricks that we experienced over those following months but I will say it was not helpful to have the two dominant players in the market place trying various ways of making life difficult for us. We were encouraged by the significant increase in membership and the support we were receiving in lobbying Ministers, MP’s, Regulators, TV, Radio and national newspapers in order to try and raise awareness of the importance of lifting certain restrictions in the sub postmaster contract.

Finally, after a 10 month wait the OFT told us that their initial findings would be published in late September 2005. Three days before, Post Office Ltd issue a revised Post Office contract to every sub postmaster. Within this contract were additional clauses that legally stopped the PMN business model dead in its tracks. Now, sub postmasters had to give notice to POL when introducing new products or services over their private retail counters and POL reserve the right to remove any product or service from Sub postmaster’s retail counters simply by giving twelve months notice.

It was very clear after talking to commercial partners that this revised contract effectively would stop potential suppliers from investing in the network and sub postmasters for fear of legally being forced to remove these products or services if POL decided to enforce their rights.

Since September, I have been forced to make all the staff at PMN redundant whilst trying to continue lobbying at the highest level to try and get support to put pressure on the OFT to commit further resource to the complaint and fully investigate the matter. Sadly, we ran out of time and the final judgment from the OFT has now been put back until early April.

Postmasternetwork has faced many challenges over the last four years and I am encouraged that despite resistance from the dominant players, we have still helped thousands of sub postmasters improve their retail businesses, we also managed to wake and shake up a few sleeping giants and forced them to focus a little more on supporting the independent sub postmaster rather than distancing themselves in their ivory towers.

Losing Postmasternetwork feels like a personal bereavement at the moment as I have lived and breathed the business for the last six years. I feel I have done my best for sub postmasters, suppliers and Shareholders of Postmasternet Ltd.

I now leave this business with many positives – the opportunity to meet some great entrepreneurial sub postmasters, building a dedicated team back in Kent, shaking up the dominant players in the industry, and the fact that Postmasternetwork did make a difference in its relatively short business life.

I, like many fellow sub postmasters are concerned about the future viability of my Post Office. I do now realise I need to become a better retailer; I need to invest now in providing my customers with an improved retail environment. This will help both my private retail and Post office counter business.

On a final note, I have no real regrets, I am now much poorer financially, but much richer in experience. I have learnt from the mistakes I have made and I leave knowing that hopefully I have made a positive impact on this network and hopefully I will be able to use my experience to help other groups in providing a solution to help sub postmasters survive in this challenging retail marketplace.

Goodbye and Good luck

Best Wishes

Gary Coyle