PENDLE Council has hit out at plans to close five post offices in the borough.

The council's executive committee last night agreed to send a letter objecting to the proposed closures.

Possible closure of branches in Burnley Road, Colne; Leeds Road, Scotland Road, and Barkerhouse Road in Nelson; and King Edward Terrace, in Barrowford, was announced by the Post Office earlier this month.

The Post Office claims the branches are struggling to survive because there are too many branches for the volume of business.

Possible closures are part of a national review of services and, if approved, will be implemented from September. They would follow the loss of four branches in Colne in October last year - Alkincoats, Burrell Avenue, Cottontree and Lidgett.

In a report to councillors on the latest closure proposals, officers stated that, with the exception of Barrowford, branches under threat were in areas that were among the most deprived in the borough and had been earmarked for regeneration under the Government's housing market renewal programme.

Councillor David Whipp said: "I don't think we can underestimate the part that services and facilities like this play in pulling neighbourhoods together.

"They are part of the fabric of our communities and closing them down starts to eat away at those communities.

"One of the underlying points we need to get over is that these are part and parcel of the housing market renewal that we and the government are wanting to get going.

"We are trying to create viable communities that are not undermined by services being sold down the river."

This view was supported by Coun Tony Greaves who said he could foresee further closures in the future until only main post offices remained.

He said: "There are going to be no ordinary, urban, corner shop post offices left.

"It is Government policy that is driving this. It is depriving post offices of business under the banner of modernisation by, for example, paying people's pensions into their bank, and failing to provide them with new

business to replace the old business that has been lost."

Coun John David said the council's previous objection to post office closures had fallen on deaf ears.

He said: "This does not mean that we shouldn't object.

"No good will come of these closures and we should do all that we can to stop them, but I have no confidence that we will have any effect."