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Leeds post offices axed
Sixty three post offices in West Yorkshire - including 22 in Leeds - face the axe, the Yorkshire Evening Post can reveal.
Post Office bosses will tomorrow announce plans to slash the county's 345 branches to 282.
The hit list includes 22 in Leeds, six in Wakefield, five in Dewsbury and Mirfield and four in Batley.
Pontefract, Normanton and Castleford will each lose one.
The Post Office says the closure of 2,500 branches nationwide is needed to maintain a sustainable network.
Post offices are losing around 3.5m a week with four million fewer customers than two years ago.
For the full list of closures click here
Residents will have only a six week consultation period – starting tomorrow – to save any branch earmarked for closure.
Five branches are in cabinet minister Hilary Benn's constituency of Leeds Central, including branches on Beeston Road, Cross Flatts Avenue and Oatlands Lane.
The criteria for the future post office network focuses on the number of households able to access branches.
To sign the Yorkshire Evening Post petition calling for a halt to the closure policy, click here.
To email us your views, click here - we'll publish the lot.
In urban areas 95 per cent of the population will be within one mile of a branch. In rural areas 95 per cent of the population will have to travel up to three miles. If the closures all go ahead, there will be 209 branches in urban areas of West Yorkshire and 73 in rural areas.
The Post Office has proposed only one branch closure in Leeds East – Foundary Lane branch – following advice from Leeds council about plans for 6,000 new homes in the Aire Valley.
Consultation outlining the shake-up states: "Post Office Limited is acutely aware of the concerns the changes affecting Post Office branches in the West Yorkshire area will cause.
"If these proposed changes take place, Post Office Limited will remain the largest retailer by network size in the area, and will still have more branches open than the number of branches of major banks and building societies combined.
"It will mean that 99.8 per cent of the population will see no change to the branch that they currently use or will remain within a mile of an alternative."
Gordon Brown was today warned that up to 3,000 more post offices face closure if the government awards a contract to handle pension and benefit payments to a rival company.
The National Federation of Sub-Postmasters (NFSP) fear many more outlets will go to the wall if the Post Office Card Account contract is won by a private company.
To sign the Yorkshire Evening Post petition calling for a halt to the closure policy, click here.
To email us your views, click here - we'll publish the lot.
For the full list of closures click here
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
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Temperature: -1 C to 1 C
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