She added that whenever a post office was turned over to a franchisee, workers who did not want to transfer were offered alternative jobs within Royal Mail or a “generous” voluntary redundancy package.”Some 96 per cent of post office branches are already successfully managed in partnership with individual subpostmasters or retail companies,” she said. “We see it as a degrading of facilities.”A six-week consultation process about the move comes to an end this week, and Royal Mail will make its decision then.But a spokeswoman for the company insisted that Mill Hill would not close. In particular, the Communication Workers Union is worried about a proposal to put the Mill Hill Post Office in north London out to franchise. “It could be closed or moved to a new site,” said a spokeswoman. Money now goes directly to bank accounts, cutting out the need for a post office.Most attention has been focused on rural branches, which often have only a handful of customers, but the urban network has also been affected.Royal Mail has already closed around 3,500 branches and unions are concerned that more jobs could be cut. While most outlets are franchises, those still managed by Royal Mail lose around £70m each year.The network has suffered because of changes to the way state benefits are paid.

Under its chairman, Allan Leighton, and chief executive, Adam Crozier, the state-controlled group has returned to the black, but the 14,500-strong post office network is still loss making. “The original plan was [to hold it] but now they are not so sure about what they are consulting on,” he said.A spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry insisted a consultation would still go ahead but was unable to say when.The future of post office branches is a big issue for Royal Mail. The payments, however, are due to stop in April 2008, at the end of a two-year “notice period” that must be served by the Government.
After requests from interested parties, such as Postwatch, the consumer watchdog, and the charity Age Concern, stakeholders were told by the Government that a “full and public” consultation would be held ahead of the two-year notice period.But a senior source at the Royal Mail said the Government has since changed its mind and no longer plans to hold a consultation before the April deadline. The Government has spent £150m a year since 2003 supporting rural branches, many of which are in remote locations and have little business. The Government has backtracked on a pledge to hold a public consultation over the future funding of 8,500 rural post offices before a spring deadline on what to do about them. But Mr Bowman, who was the chief executive of drinks giant Allied Domecq until it was sold to Pernod Ricard last year, stopped short of promising that Scottish Power would not be sold under his watch.. It’s pretty homophobic around here.”MATT WILSON, FROM MANLY:”Many board riders probably are homophobic When you are a kid you think it’s not cool to be gay When you grow up you realise how stupid you were.”.

Philip Bowman, the new chief executive of Scottish Power, has already tried to reassure workers that he has not been brought in to sell the group. They are very macho.”GUS DAVIES, STUDENT, 20:”There are gay surfers, definitely, but I don’t know about any gay surfing scene. It’s hard to be camp on a surfboard or anything like that.”CLINTON MOODY, 32, FROM MANLY:”I’ve never bumped into any. There’s too much testosterone in the water for them.”MATT SKELTON, TEENAGER:”I know two lesbian surfers but not any gay men No one is really open about it. You have your shorts and boards – how can you be gay?”JONAS LARSEN, FROM SWEDEN:”The aggressive nature of many young Australian males is one of the downsides of the sport even if you are not gay. “I know there is a macho image – with things like big wave riding, for example – but surfers tend to be quite open. Homosexuality is probably more accepted within the surfing community than in other, more traditional sports.”THE WORD ON MANLY BEACHMARK WASHINGTON, FAMILY MAN, 37:”It’s not the sort of environment to be openly gay.

“Surfers have always had a bohemian lifestyle and been quite alternative and non-conformist,” said Ms Hillman. “There’s a lot of sex in it; there’s teenage characters; there’s drugs; there’s a lot of swearing and quite surreal moments,” he said.Joanne Hillman, a spokeswoman for the British Surfing Association, which is based at Fistral Beach in Newquay, the spiritual home of English surfing, said that despite the sport’s image, surfers in general were very accepting of homosexuality. He refuses to tone down the explicit nature of the story and expects it to make as much of a splash when it’s screened as it has even before it has been made. But he couldn’t find any, so he settled for straight surfers who are also non-actors. A spokesman said he knew of one homosexual competitor in sport, but he had decided not to come out publicly.Ed Aldridge tried to cast gay surfers in his film, which he hopes to finish by June in time for the festival season. Bent Boards is even organising a “let’s go surfing day” as part of Victoria’s annual gay Midsumma Festival.The official body, Surfing Australia, said there was no discrimination against gay surfers and it would be illegal if there were.