A public consultation began yesterday on plans to shut 26 post offices across Cambridgeshire, including three in Peterborough and seven in the surrounding area.

Officials claim the closure of city branches in Woodston, New England and West Town will leave customers no more than a mile away from their nearest alternative branch.

But with the loss of post offices in isolated rural villages potentially leaving customers facing journeys of several miles to use the service, replacement "outreach" services are being proposed.

A Post Office spokesman said: "The new outreach services would use innovative ways to continue to provide Post Office services – particularly in smaller communities – where the existing branch is proposed for closure."

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Read more: Special Report: Hands Off Our Post Offices
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Threatened branches in Great Gidding and Holme would be replaced with mobile post offices, offering services in each village for eight hours a week.

In Ramsey St Mary's, the existing branch will be scaled down and merged with a newsagent on the same site if the closure proposals go ahead.

And in Benwick, where the post office has been closed for several months since the shop which shared its premises went out of business, an outreach service is expected to be hosted for three hours every week at the Five Alls pub.

The Post Office announced its plans to close a number of its branches in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and South Lincolnshire on Monday.

The move comes after the company was asked by the Government to shed 2,500 branches from its network of more than 14,000 in an effort to cut its mounting financial losses.

Other Cambridgeshire branches being earmarked for closure are in Harecroft Road, Wisbech; St Peter's Road, March, and in Great Stukeley.

Across the border in Lincolnshire, offices in Lutton, Moulton Seas End and Weston Hills are being earmarked for the axe.

The plans to close the three branches in Peterborough, meanwhile, are being opposed by the leadership of Peterborough City Council, which has described the proposals as "deplorable".

The council's Conservative leader John Peach said: "Post offices provide vital services to their communities and these closure plans are not welcome.

"The council is very much against the proposals to the extent that we are putting a motion before the full council meeting next week deploring the actions of the Government.

"We will be asking Gordon Brown to stop this latest round of post office closures, not just in the Peterborough area but throughout Cambridgeshire."

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