On March 13 we shall be saying goodbye to our last local sub-post office in Broadwater Parade. It will make the third one we have lost locally and another little centre of the community gone.

In due time, no doubt, Broadwater itself, which lest we forget is older than Worthing, will probably lose its sub-post office as well.

Another round of closures is, despite official denials, on its way and rumours are rife that Worthing's main post office building will eventually be sold off and possibly reduced to a counter in a shop.

Bosses are trying to prove that "online rules OK" and the services provided by the Post Office and Royal Mail are gradually being made redundant.

It would seem that Post Office chief executive Adam Crozier is being paid a great deal of money to get rid of losses by running the Post Office down completely and selling off its assets. He tries to convince us that less mail is being sent and yet he has made it more difficult, with size to consider now as well as weight.

However, he has short-sightedly not realised that, ironically, electronic progress is running history backwards.

Those people who can remember the 1950s will recall that all manner of things, such as groceries, laundry, parcels of all sorts and telegrams used to be delivered. Some local letters even got delivered the same day.

Now we conduct our affairs online but, crucially, more is being delivered again while the means to do it are being run down.

The huge growth of private individuals selling on the internet has contributed to the increase as well as the many stores which now sell online.

Two years ago our local sub-postmaster said he might have filled half a sack behind the counter on a Monday morning, now it's two sacks. They always say you don't miss something until it's gone.

Just take Marks and Spencer. Did Stuart Rose turn the company around by closing all the shops down? No, he refurbished them and drew on their original strengths.

Mr Crozier says the Post Office is losing huge sums every day but it seems illogical to close the very sources of potential extra income.

Isn't it true that with huge fuel price rises that discontinuing the mail trains is now considered a mistake?

Instead of trying to get the poor counter staff to flog insurance every time we buy a stamp, Mr Crozier should use some lateral thinking and create additional, more useful services such as developing local banking and allowing sub-post offices to do more, for example being able to approve passport applications.

  • Tim Nicholls, Northcourt Road, Worthing