THE city’s main post office needs to “improve dramatically” and cut the amount of time people are forced to wait to buy stamps and send letters, a councillor has said.

Long queues and constantly breaking self-service machines in Worcester’s High Street post office means the city is not getting the service it deserves, according to Councillor Alan Amos.

Cllr Alan Amos will call on council bosses to urgently meet with representatives of the Post Office at a full council meeting next Tuesday (November 19) to seek an “immediate improvement in the increasingly unreasonably long queues.”

He said: “What we are talking about is Worcester’s main and central post office. The people of Worcester deserve a better post office and the long queues at the moment are simply not good enough.

“It is simply not acceptable, and it needs to improve dramatically.”

Cllr Amos bemoaned the lack of staff behind counters and over-reliance on self-service machines which forced people to have to queue much longer than they should be.”

He said: “It’s not even as if it has been the odd occasion.

“I have gone to the post office at different times in the day and different days in the week and it always seems to be having the same kind of problem.

“People who are using the post office should not be waiting 15 or 20 minutes every time they go in.

“A decision has obviously been made high up to use this kind of technology. The number of counters with actual people sitting behind them has gone down and they have been replaced with these machines.

“The problem with that is on several occasions when I have been there is only one member of staff at the counter and people aren’t using the machines which means the queues get longer and longer.

“More often than not they have members of staff helping people use the self-service machines which just seems ridiculous and that’s only when they are working.”

Cllr Amos said the city should not have to be forced to use machines rather than speaking to staff in the post office.

“I’m a believer in choice and I think people deserve a choice. You can’t force people to use these machines,” he said.

A spokesman for the Post Office said: “We understand how important post offices are to communities. We are willing to meet council representatives to discuss Post Office matters.”