A mian post office reopened after months of campaigning - but its customers have failed to return.

Just a handful of customers were this week using the new post office in Church Road, Hove, despite a long and hard-fought battle to get it opened.

The old post office closed last May when postmistress Margaret Hodgson resigned after nine years because she could no longer afford the rent.

Customers had to queue at a small sub post office in Blatchington Road, Hove, or use larger branches in Western Road and Portslade.

Campaigners organised a petition of 2,400 signatures but yesterday Sanjiv Patel, sub post master at the new Church Road post office, said: "No one is coming in.

"By 10am today we had just one customer.

"People said it was terrible when the old one closed but they are not using our new branch."

Mr Patel left leaflets at surrounding pubs, shops and take aways and placed a temporary post office sign outside his branch, Taylors of Hove Newsagents, but there are still too few customers.

The Blatchington Road branch is also struggling to bring in customers.

Postmaster Nayan Shah said: "At the moment the only day we are really busy is Monday.

"Apart from that the trend is to get less customers because the number of people coming in for benefit payments is dropping drastically. They are being paid into bank accounts instead."

The Government is scrapping the old pension book, which had to be used at a post office branch, and by the end of February all benefits will be paid into bank accounts or post office cash card accounts. Mr Shah said: "People are only coming in to post stuff. We have noticed a drop in trade since pension books were taken away."

Another postmaster in central Brighton said there was a real danger of branches closing.

Mark Bell, external relations manager at the Post Office, said: "In some areas the drop-off in trade has been as much as 40 per cent.

"That is why we have gone through the network reorganisation programme over the last two years."

The Post Office is introducing insurance policies and home telephone packages to lure new customers and is a leading supplier of foreign currency.

Mr Bell said: "It is up to people to use post offices if they want them to survive. We made every effort to restore the Church Street branch and would encourage people to come and use it."