The shadow post office minister Charles Hendry said customers desperate to save a branch marked for closure will achieve nothing by being emotional.

"They need to understand as well that the cards are stacked against them," he said.

The Post Office will unveil in August which branches it intends to cull across Sheffield, Rotherham and Barnsley.

The closure programme is already underway in Doncaster following an announcement in October that seven branches were earmarked for closure, with a further branch to be replaced with an "outreach" service.

Speaking to regional reporters in Westminster, Mr Hendry criticised the six-week consultation period for communities to fight back as "too short".

And he accused the Government of failing to do enough to make the Post Office network commercially viable. It is believed between 200 and 250 of Yorkshire's 1,244 post office branches face the axe.

The Post Office says the closure of 2,500 branches nationwide is needed to maintain a "sustainable network".

Post offices are losing around £3.5 million a week and there are four million fewer customers than two years ago.

Mr Hendry warned communities not to get their hopes up about reversing a decision to close a branch once the consultation begins.

Very few post offices have been saved in other parts of the country where half the targeted branches have been earmarked for closure already, he said.

He added: "They will do nothing on emotion. I understand why people want to do petitions and marches but they will count for less than letters which specifically point out a flaw."

The criteria for the future post office network focuses on the number of households able to access branches.

In urban areas 95 per cent of the population will be within one mile of a branch. In rural areas 95 per cent of the population will have to travel up to three miles to access postal services.

Mr Hendry said anyone wanting to save their branch had to prove the criteria were not being met.

"They have to make representations in the most thoroughly effective way they can.

"They cannot just say it is an important post office but they must say it has got the access criteria wrong, or they have failed to take into account a bus route which is closing, or a very steep hill which people could not get up easily," he said.

The Tories have not offered to find extra money to subsidise the Post Office network but have argued the government should do more to open up branches to new business.

READ MORE
Main news index.
Your letters.
Today's features.
Latest sport.