THE spectre of post office closures has been blighting communities across the country since Royal Mail bosses announced their Urban Reinvention Programme 18 months ago. But only now it has hit at the heart of East Lancashire and, with 27 offices earmarked for the axe, local people are asking if there is anything they can do to stem the tide. DAVID HIGGERSON reports. . .

THE Post Office's 'Urban Reinvention Programme' - or the closure of 3,000 of the 9,000 'urban' post offices in the network - is now 18 months old and has caused outcry wherever management have tried to introduce it.

They argue that they need to shut so many of the sub-post offices to ensure those remaining continue to be viable.

A series of decisions appear to have gone against sub-post-masters - most notably the Government's decision to let people receive benefit via direct debit rather than just over a post office counter.

In some cases this has led to a 33per cent reduction in business at post offices.

But long before that decision was taken, rural post offices were feeling the pinch.

In the Ribble Valley, for example, several villages have been all-but taken over by holiday home owners, vastly reducing the customer base.

Ribble Valley is also now home to a vast number of commuters who live in the area but travel to place like Manchester to work and often aren't at home when the post offices are open.

So what has been their solution?

In Bolton-by-Bowland the post office expanded to become a tea room, cashing in on the passing tourist trade. The move has kept them in business, says postmaster Tim Hall.

He said: "We needed the tearoom to keep going and we are looking for new ways all the time to get new people coming in.

"For example, during the rugby world cup we screened the final in the tearoom and that brought the community together. You can't just be a post office and expect to be part of the community any more.

"You have to fit in with the community."

In West Bradford, when their postmaster decided to retire in 2002, the community rallied round and a housewife opened a two morning-a-week post office counter in the vestry of the Methodist Church.

In Ribchester the post office recently closed when the postmistress decided to retire. Hopes are high it can now be relocated in the local Spar shop.

But could such an initiative work in the communities now threatened with closure when consultation ends next month?

Wendy Martin, external communications manager for Royal Mail, said: "The only urban post offices affected are those where the postmaster has indicated he wants to resign.

"When we wrote to postmasters, more than 50per cent said they would be willing to resign. In Hyndburn, for example, the four post offices we've proposed to close all had postmasters wanting to go. They'd had their businesses on the market for three years and no-one had come into buy them.

"A structured closure programme is preferable to the post offices closing ad-hoc. But of course, any alternatives put forward to us during the consultations will be considered."

In most cases, the Post Office says, the branches which will close are within a mile of another post office, or at least easily accessible to one.

That's a promise currently being challenged by Hyndburn Council.

Coun Malcolm Pritchard, who has a disabled son who he takes to Whalley Road Post Office - one of the four earmarked for the axe - said: "The proposals will rip the heart out of the community. They really will."

Will they? Not if the Johnston Street area of Wensley Fold, Blackburn, is anything to go by.

Their post office closed last year. Back then the post office was closing branches one-by-one - a strategy which changed when the Government blasted them for confusing people.

Now they close them constituency by constituency.

A petition was presented to the Post Office, but to no avail.

On Johnston Street the post box outside the old post office is the only sign that, once, it would have been a thriving centre of the community.

Joan Adams, who lives in nearby Addison Street, walked past the old post office yesterday. She said: "I used go there for my pension. I would stop by the other shops as well, and I still do now.

"The only difference is my pension is paid into my bank now. I still go to the shops."

Traders in Johnston Street say initial concerns about business dropping haven't materialised. As one trader said: "People can park in front of my shop, they can't do that in the town centre!"

The concern of councillors is that the closures will just be the first of many.

But Wendy Martin added: "Since 1980, 5,000 post offices have closed as postmasters leave. By tackling the problem now, we have a service sustainable for the 21st century."