BLACKBURN and District Trades Council congratulates the Lancashire Telegraph on its campaign against the post office closures in East Lancashire.

We are also pleased to see that local MPs from both the Conservative and Labour parties have indicated their support, either generally or in respect of particular post offices.

Unfortunately, we do seem to face the problem that - from the point of view of the Government and of the post office bosses - the current closure programme is very much simply a case of dotting the Is and crossing the Ts on plans which the then Department of Trade and Industry "consulted" on at the turn of last year.

Perhaps we pay too little attention to, or merely have lost any confidence in, such "consultations" but not many local representative bodies appear on the list of those who replied.

The Trades Council did respond, and said that "the parameters being set are really those for an economic restructuring weighted towards cost rather than towards service grounds and that the outcome will be a network which may not be as comprehensive or as good as it should be."

We have felt for some time indeed, that the direction of travel set by the Government for the Royal Mail as a whole is wrong. It is encouraged to refer to itself as a "business," rather than as a public service.

Areas of this "business" are "opened up" to "competition," going even further than the EU rules our Government played a leading role in pressing for.

This commercialisation leads to policies like the "franchising" of Crown Post Offices, with consequences anyone can see by a visit to Blackburn GPO. Government-related services, like TV licences, are handed over to separate retail networks.

No wonder the end result is that the Government no longer seems to have the capacity to address the situation from the point of view the public would prefer.

You say in your editorial of February 25 that MPs should raise in Parliament the indifferent stance the post office intends to take towards petitions against post office closures.

We agree, but to make real inroads into the current situation they will need to go much further than that.

IAN GALLAGHER, Secretary, Blackburn and District Trades Council, Wellington Street St Johns, Blackburn.