The Post Office has chosen the six weeks running up to Christmas for its so-called consultation period on the closure of post office branches.

A wellchosen time of year to discourage objections. Is this really a period of consultation? Is there any record of the Post Office changing its mind in the face of local opposition? Isn't this just a period of information? I fear the minds of the Post Office management are already made up.

I regularly have to post out heavy parcels of books, yet I am expected to walk almost a mile up the hill to Fiveways, or the same distance up another hill to Matlock Road. There is no public transport to either place, parking is well nigh impossible at Fiveways and the queues sometimes stretch out onto the pavement.

I thought we were supposed to be cutting the need to travel, particularly by car.

The post office branch at the Co-op has only a short lease to run and could close in a year or two. The Post Office mentions in their leaflet a branch in Melville Road which is miles away in Hove.

Why did they not mention Patcham Post Office just a short bus journey away, with buses every 20 minutes? Perhaps that too is scheduled to close in due course.

Maurice Packham suggested using email instead of the postal services (Letters, November 16). Perhaps he could tell me how to send a parcel by email. Anyway, by no means everyone has access to email.

Are these post office closures the same as the Beeching cuts on the railways? Beeching did not realise that the branch lines fed the main lines. Without local post offices we are less likely to use postal services.

A reason for yet more closures?

  • Selma Montford, hon secretary, the Brighton Society, Clermont Road, Brighton