8488 Italian Vice Consulate in Bedford closing down

For information, the Italian Vice Consulate in Bedford will be closing down in April 2008. I would suggest anyone who needs to use them for passports, Visas etc should go early in the new year.

Biagio

Category
General chat about Italy

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 01/01/2008 - 18:17

Apparently the local Sunday papers were wrong about the Italian Vice Consulate closing down. The Vice Consulate building will be knocked down and the office will move with a reduced number of staff and services but passports and visas will still be processed in the future.
Apologies for the misinformation.

Biagio

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 01/10/2008 - 05:36

Hi, Biagio,
Thanks for that, I'm relieved for the staff there, it has been such a happy and helpful place, and also for the Italian population in Bedford. Was it the 'Bedfordshire On Sunday', getting things wrong...again?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 01/10/2008 - 06:16

[QUOTE=She-Wolf;80272Was it the 'Bedfordshire On Sunday', getting things wrong...again?[/QUOTE]

Yes it was this was the front page from 30/12/2007.Did not see this myself at the time;

Italians to lose unique office
Bedford's Italian Vice- Consulate is to close in April.

The Vice-Consulate in Greyfriars opened in 1954 to help Italian immigrants freshly arrived in the area.

After the Second World War, Britain's building boom had created a labour shortage in Bedfordshire's brick industry.

At the same time, southern Italy was one of the poorest areas in Europe with massive post-war unemployment and poverty.

In 1951, the Marston Valley Brick Company set up a recruitment office in Naples and recruited some 8,000 Italians over the following 15 years.

The Vice-Consulate helped the newcomers adjust to their adoptive homeland and later eased the passage of thousands of wives and children who chose to follow their menfolk.

It was then supposedly the only such Vice-Consulate in the world in a non-capital city.

A Bedford Borough Council spokesman said: "The Mayor was notified by the Vice-Consul on 24 December that a decision had been made by the Italian government to close their Vice- Consulate in 2008.

"Arrangements are being made for the council to be fully briefed by Italian Embassy staff on the reasons behind this and what the proposals are to replace the services currently provided at the Vice-Consulate .

"At this stage it is not possible for the council to comment further." No-one at the Vice-Consulate was available for comment.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 01/10/2008 - 10:28

Hi She-Wolf, yes as PAS 55 posted, it was The Beds on Sunday. This just goes to show, how the hell does a story like that get completely changed. I, like may other Italians saw the story on the Sunday and the next evening we went to the usual ACLI New Years eve bash and there was an announcement made there that the story was wrong.