The stark warning comes from a Cockerham resident who watched her village suffer after its branch was closed in 2004.

Coun Carol Owens, of Cockerham Parish Council, said the two-day-a-week 'outreach' service that replaced the doomed post office – run from the village hall – was little consolation.

Six branches in Lancaster district – in Higher Greaves, Ridge, Carnforth, Middleton, Nether Kellet and Yealand Redmayne – could be closed following radical plans put forward by postal chiefs, while the post offices in Glasson Dock and Quernmore could be shut and replaced by two-day-a-week outreach services.

Mrs Owens said: "The outreach is not like having a permanent shop and post office.

"To go to the village hall go get a parcel delivered just does not feel right. It is not a post office – it is the kitchen of a village hall.

"The post office are destroying little villages. Our communication hub has gone and that's where you find out what's going on in the village – it will definitely happen to the other villages.

"I can understand the situation the post office is in but a community needs that shop."

Post offices and the Lancaster Guardian's campaign also received heavyweight backing from the city council leader and two MPs this week.

Coun Roger Mace, Lancaster MP Ben Wallace and Geraldine Smith, MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, all joined the fight to Save Our Post Offices.

Coun Mace fears his local general store in Nether Kellet will also close if the post office it houses is shut.

He said: "It is no longer a political issue – it is a community issue.
"Without a shop to meet somebody you become a commuter belt and not a village."

Miss Smith said, following a meeting last week with post office bosses, she had cause for hope.

She said: "If one has got the best chance of surviving, it is probably Nether Kellet because it's a village shop and because without the post office it makes the last shop in the village unsustainable.

"There's a slim chance of it staying open."

Mr Wallace is also against outreach services. He said: "The outreaches are just a con – you lose your post office and you get a guy in a car park twice a week.

"I think it is wrong and I will be lodging an appeal."

* COUNCILLORS have again backed district post offices facing closure.

At Tuesday's Lancaster City Council cabinet meeting, members agreed to look into what postal services could be provided by the town hall and the county council following a similar move by Essex County Council.

They also asked officers to consider alternatives for people who currently use post offices to pay their council tax and said councillors should set an example in supporting the under-threat branches.

Coun Abbott Bryning said: "I think as a matter of principle we should all be paying in to the post offices if we believe in them.

"It is not a great problem nipping to your post office to pay your council tax."

Coun David Kerr added: "We all need to start using the post offices."