Hayes Post Office closes 12 September, no replacement yet

Hayes Post Office closes on Saturday 12 September 2026, and Post Office Ltd has not yet named anywhere to replace it.

The branch is at 6-8 Station Road, Hayes UB3 4DA, inside the TG Jones store that used to be WHSmith. Post Office Ltd wrote to customers and local representatives on Wednesday 29 July, giving 45 days’ notice. It called the closure “unplanned” and blamed “the restructuring plan announcement by our retail partner TG Jones”. (Hayes UB3 4DA information letter, 29 July 2026, Post Office Ltd)

On a replacement, the letter says only that the company is “currently in the early stages of reviewing applications to run the Post Office branch”. No date, no site.

Uxbridge went 68 days without one

The borough has just been through this. Uxbridge Post Office, also inside a TG Jones store, closed at 5pm on Saturday 30 May after the retailer resigned the contract. Post Office services did not return to the town until interim counters opened in Hillingdon Civic Centre at 9am on Thursday 6 August. That is a gap of 68 days. (Uxbridge UB8 1JY information letter, 23 April 2026; service re-opening letter, 31 July 2026)

That gap closed because Hillingdon Council offered a room in its own building. Council leader Cllr Steve Tuckwell said the authority “contacted the Post Office and offered the Civic Centre as a temporary location” as soon as it heard the Uxbridge branch was going. (Council helps to deliver new home for Uxbridge Post Office, Hillingdon Council, 31 July 2026) The council has not announced anything similar for Hayes.

There is one thing Hayes residents should know about how this gets decided. The small print at the end of the closure letter says that where a closure is unplanned, service in the area is reviewed on “current usage, modelling and availability of any suitable replacement”, and that the decision on whether to seek a replacement is a commercial one that “will not be subject to public consultation”. Post Office Ltd is notifying Hayes. It is not consulting it.

Where to go instead, and what you lose

The letter names two alternatives. Neither is a like-for-like swap.

Park Parade is the closer of the two, and it is the one that drops services. Post Office Ltd says it will not offer a comprehensive range of travel money, Passport Check and Send, on-demand travel insurance or vehicle tax. High Road Hayes is described as carrying “a similar range of services” to the closing branch, but it shuts at 4pm on weekdays and 1pm on Saturdays.

The branch that is closing currently does paper passport Check and Send for new applications and renewals, vehicle tax, document certification, foreign currency, travel insurance, Western Union transfers and everyday cash and cheque banking, and it does all of it until 5.30pm six days a week. (Hayes Post Office branch page, Post Office Ltd)

For passports in particular, the picture across the borough is thin. The interim Uxbridge counters in the Civic Centre do not offer Passport Check and Send either, so from 12 September neither Hayes town centre nor Uxbridge town centre will have it.

The petition, and what it can actually achieve

An ePetition asking Hillingdon Council to intervene has been running since 24 August. It had 85 signatures when we checked on 30 August, against the 50 needed for the council to consider it formally. It runs until Thursday 24 September, which is after the branch has already shut. (Petition for Alternative Post Office Provision in Hayes Town, Hillingdon Council)

It asks the council to:

• engage urgently with Post Office Ltd and other partners to find alternative provision inside Hayes Town
• avoid “any unnecessary gap” between the closure and any replacement
• take account of residents who rely on face-to-face services or are digitally excluded
• consult residents on the options
• keep people informed as talks go on

The petitioners accept in their own wording that the closure “may not be within Hillingdon Council’s direct control”, which is right: the Post Office is not a council service.

Under the council’s petition scheme, clearing 50 signatures gets the issue in front of a Cabinet Member, who then chooses one of three responses: a written reply within 20 working days, a site visit within eight weeks, or folding the matter into an existing consultation. Those decisions are final and cannot be appealed. (After you submit a petition, Hillingdon Council) None of those outcomes is, in itself, a Post Office.

What it means for you

• If you need a passport check, vehicle tax, on-demand travel insurance or a full range of travel money, do it before Saturday 12 September at the Station Road branch, or use High Road Hayes afterwards. Park Parade offers none of those four.
• Park Parade closes for lunch, 1pm to 1.30pm every weekday, and at 4pm on Wednesdays. Check before you travel.
• None of the three branches above opens on a Sunday, and none stays open past 5.30pm.
• Both alternatives are walkable but not short: about a mile and about 1.3 miles, described by Post Office Ltd as “along varied terrain”. Local buses serve both.
• If you want to raise it, the petition is open until 24 September and comments to Post Office Ltd go to comments@postoffice.co.uk. Comments are not treated as confidential unless you mark them “In Confidence”.

The retailer behind both closures is the same company under two names. TG Jones High Street Limited, company number 06560339, was controlled by WH Smith High Street Holdings until that entry changed on the Companies House register on 29 June 2025. (Filing history, Companies House)

Everything above comes from Post Office Ltd’s own published letters and branch pages, the council’s petition register and the Companies House record. If a replacement site is named, we will report it.

More Hayes and Uxbridge information: bin collection days, parking in Uxbridge, council tax bands and planning applications.