MORE than 100 people arrived at Ryedale District Council's headquarters to make their views known to Post Office bosses about proposed branch closures.

The meeting was organised by the district council and North Yorkshire County Council with the Post Office represented by Nick Turner, the company's external relations manager.

He explained that the Government had made the decision to close 2,500 post offices nationally in order to make the business commercially viable.

He said that currently the Post Office loses £3.5million a week, and said that just because sub-post masters said they were making a profit it did not always follow that Post Office Ltd did likewise, blaming costs of maintaining the infrastructure.

However, people at the meeting were quick to tell Mr Turner their views. They were keen to make sure Mr Turner knew how vital individual branches were to there villages, particularly older people, and not just so they could buy stamps.

County councillor Mike Knaggs said: "The post office is one of the main meeting places in a village and it gets people out of the house.

"Don't take the post office away from them, leave it there so they can get their pension or whatever."

The sub-postmaster at Huby also revealed that he had offered to run his business for a nominal sum of £1 a year. Despite numerous emails, no-one from the Post Office has bothered to give him an answer, he claimed.

Mr Turner said that maintaining the cost of the infrastructure would still have to be paid, for but senior managers were looking at the possibility of communities running and paying for their own post office.

Two petitions were also handed in, one from Sherburn Post Office, near Scarborough, and another from The Press's sister paper, the Gazette and Herald.

Mr Turner said the petitions and views of people at the meeting would be taken into account when final decisions are made.

The Press will take its fight to save as many of the 50 Post Offices tabled for closure across York and North and East Yorkshire to Downing Street tomorrow afternoon.

We will deliver our Cut the Closures petition, which now totals more than 5,000 signatures, to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The consultation period for our region ends on January 17.

Petition forms or letters of support can be sent to Newsroom, The Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York, YO1 9YN.