CAMPAIGNERS have gone to the top in a bid to save their post office.

Jennifer Jones has composed a poem and sent it to the Queen as she campaigns to save Newhaven’s Crown post office from being downgraded.

The Post Office announced last year that it was exploring options to close the post office building and move services into a nearby shop.

But campaigners fear the move will mean fewer services in a town which lost its last bank branch in 2014 and three sub post offices in recent years.

Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour politicians have all spoken out against the plans, which they warn will be another hammer blow for the town.

Miss Jones, from Church Hill in Newhaven, has already collected about 1,000 signatures opposing the move and gathered hundreds more while protesting in Newhaven High Street on Saturday.

She said: “We don’t want our heritage to be taken away. We don’t want it to be privatised.

“People don’t understand the difference between a Crown post office, which really is the Rolls-Royce of post offices, and a franchise, which is effectively privatisation.

“People now come from Seaford to use the Crown post office in Newhaven while people in Lewes, where theirs was franchised last year, drive into Ringmer rather than go to W H Smith.

“We are a port town, so visas are very important. We won’t get that in a franchise.

“We also get banking for businesses, foreign currency and booths for giving confidential information, which will all go.

“For the staff, at the moment they have HR, they have union support, they have skills and they have a career. That won’t be there in a franchise.”

Post Office officials told The Argus last month that the proposed closure of the Crown post office, which is currently considered financially unviable, was to ensure its future.

If a franchise partner can be found, a detailed proposal will be drawn up by the Post Office which will then be subject to a six-week public consultation to enable customers to provide feedback.

A similar move saw Lewes lose its Crown post office last year when it moved a few doors down into W H Smith despite almost 4,500 residents signing a petition opposing the move.