A LAST ditch effort to save a Post Office has been launched by an MP urging bosses to "take their heads out of the sand".

Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, is asking the Post Office to allow residents to put in a bid for the closing Western Road Crown Post Office in Hove so they can run it as a franchise.

The post office be closing its door later this year as it is “no longer commercially sustainable”.

Campaigners were left frustrated as the service will be shutting down despite two petitions totalling more than 7,000 signatures, 400 responses to the Post Office’s consultation and a high profile campaign.

Ms Lucas is worried about the impact the Hove branch's closure will have on the Churchill Square Branch in her consistency, which she said is "already overburdened".

She said: "In the meeting I had with the Post Office last week they confirmed to me that it is possible for a franchise to take over a Post Office like the Western Road branch – but that this isn’t planned in this case.

"Post Office bosses must take their heads out of the sand and look again at alternatives to cutting this local resource.

"I’m urging them to allow to give the local community time to put together a plan to run this branch themselves.

"Brighton’s residents have shown their aptitude for taking community assets into their own hands – from the Bevy Pub to Exeter St Hall- and they should be given the chance to run this Post Office.”

She added: "It seems entirely unreasonable to expect staff at Churchill Square to cope with this additional strain. I simply don’t believe that local factors were taken into account during the consultation on this closure.

“In the meeting I had with the Post Office last week they confirmed to me that it is possible for a franchise to take over a Post Office like the Western Road branch – but that this isn’t planned in this case."

Green councillor Ollie Sykes said: “I was hoping they would reconsider. Big queues are already taking place at the Churchill Square and Church Road Post Offices. They are totally overloaded”.

“Sadly they’re insisting on closing in this location. They could make it work”.