4,000 more post offices may still be stamped out

A FURTHER one in three post offices in the UK could be forced to shut even after the latest round of closures is over, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

Hundreds of towns and villages across Britain are currently being told that their local office is being closed, as bosses seek to stem losses of £3.5m a week.

But ministers now admit that there are "no guarantees" that even more post offices will not be axed after 2011 when their current budgets run out.

The round of closures now ongoing will see the number of post offices reduced from 14,000 to 11,500. However, the eventual scale of closures could reduce the total down to just 7,500, meaning that one in three post offices now 'safe' could still face closure.

The news comes with post offices across Scotland already closing as a result of the cuts. A total of 41 branches across Central Scotland and Glasgow have been pinpointed for closure. Next month, 17 post offices across the Highlands will close for good. Further closures in north-east Scotland, Edinburgh, the west and south of Scotland will be announced soon.

But business minister Pat McFadden said he was unable to rule out further closures down to the Government's minimum of 7,500 post offices once the current round of cuts was over.

In an interview with Scotland on Sunday, McFadden said: "No one wants to be going through the process that we are going through at the moment but huge lifestyle changes have caused a reduction in the use of post offices which has not been matched by a decline in sentiment towards them. In terms of funding we have funded a sustainable network of 11,500 post offices until 2011. I can't make new spending commitments beyond that, no minister can."

The 7,500 figure has been set as the bare minimum by ministers. They claim with this number, nearly all the urban population would be within one mile of a post office, with the majority of the rural population all within three miles.

Conservative shadow business secretary Alan Duncan warned that ministers were set for even more closures. He said: "Under the Government's current criteria, there's nothing to stop them reducing the network down to around 7,000."

MP Mike Weir, the SNP's spokesman on postal affairs, added: "These closures are equivalent to the cuts to the railway network made by Dr Beeching in the Sixties. Like those cuts, closure of local post offices will hit rural areas and the vulnerable hardest."

Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem work and pensions spokesman, said: "The fact that ministers can contemplate further closures while they are in the process of closing 2,500 suggests that we should have no faith that this is the last mass closure programme."

A further problem may come later this year if Post Office Ltd fails to retain a contract to supply cards which allow around four million people without bank accounts to withdraw benefits and pensions. Duncan said: "We have serious concerns that the network will be devastated if the Post Office does not succeed in retaining the card account."

A spokesman for Post Office Ltd said: "The Network Change programme is aimed at creating a sustainable post office network for the future. Post Office Ltd is also working hard to become more efficient and to develop successful new products and services that will attract new customers and revenue to the business and increase the sustainability of the post office network in the future."