New Post Office Planned Near Turnham Green Terrace
Team from Heathfield Terrace planning to move to Autocheck garage site
The current Autocheck site on Chiswick Common Road
April 25, 2026
Chiswick’s Post Office looks set to be on the point of relocating with the current operation on Heathfield Terrace intending to switch to a new site near Turnham Green Terrace.
A planning application has been submitted to convert a former vehicle repair workshop on Chiswick Common Road into a Post Office. The application (P/2026/1203) proposes alterations to the shopfront at the site of the former Autocheck garage to allow a change of use from a repair workshop (Class B2) to a Post Office (Class E). The new branch would sit next door to the popular Frankie's Bakery. The plans show a Bureau de Change as well as a Post Office Counter.
The application has been brought by the same postmaster team currently running the restored Heathfield Terrace branch. It is understood that the level of rent charged for the larger unit, which has hosted a Post Office for decades, has prompted the planned switch.
The plan has been warmly welcomed by local councillor Joanna Biddolph. "This is such good news for Chiswick," she said. "I have met the two postmasters and know how committed they are to providing residents, businesses and visitors with an efficient, friendly and professional post office service in Chiswick. I support this application with enthusiasm."
Cllr Biddolph also highlighted the broader significance of the new premises. "I want to help the team promote the extensive services this post office provides including highlighting the fact that it is a banking hub," she said — an important consideration at a time when bank branches across west London continue to close. She noted that the postmasters had for decades been burdened with what she described as "wholly inappropriate and extremely expensive premises" on Heathfield Terrace, subject to onerous terms and conditions limiting how the building could be used. "This is a fantastic opportunity for a fresh start," she added.
Jackie Elton, Chair of the Mid Chiswick Society and the Friends of Chiswick Common, said that residents would be interested to study more details of the proposal but welcome the concept of having a local post office provided traffic and parking concerns are addressed.
The Heathfield Terrace Post Office closed suddenly in May 2025, without clear explanation or a firm date for reopening, leaving residents arriving at the branch to find a sign on the door stating it was "temporarily closed" due to "unforeseen circumstances."
The closure prompted widespread alarm. It was understood that were the post office to close permanently, Chiswick would become the largest town in the UK without a branch by a significant margin — with a population more than three times that of Immingham in Lincolnshire, which had been without a branch since June 2024.
A petition calling for reopening gathered over 2,000 signatures. Post Office Ltd eventually gave formal notice of the branch's closure in June 2025, beginning a four-week statutory consultation, though it offered no clear timetable for restoration of services. Our investigations suggested the franchisee had been struggling to make the business viable, with the convenience store at the same address believed to have been cross-subsidising postal services but increasingly less able to do so. The building was also widely expected to face redevelopment within a few years, making it difficult to attract a new franchisee to the site.
The current team took over the Heathfield Terrace site last September but inherited some of the challenges that had made it so difficult to operate profitably from the location. The planned Chiswick Common Road branch represents a clean break from those difficulties. Rather than trying to revive a struggling operation in an uncertain building, the postmaster team is investing in purpose-fitted premises.
The planning application P/2026/1203 is currently under consultation. Residents wishing to comment can do so via the council's planning portal.
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