ANXIOUS residents and sub-postmasters will have to wait until next month to find out whether their post office has been saved.

Across York, North Yorkshire and East Yorkshire, 50 branches are facing the axe. The six-week consultation period into the proposed closures ended yesterday.

On Wednesday, a delegation from The Press travelled to London to present copies of our Cut the Closures campaign petition to Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Number 10 Downing Street, and to Post Office Ltd bosses at their Old Street headquarters.

Petition signatures continued to arrive at our Walmgate offices today. More than 100 have come through the post in the last two days.

A spokesman for Post Office Ltd said the results of the consultation would be released next month.

"We are scheduled to announce the final decisions on the proposals in the second week in February," he said. "Between now and then, we will look at all the feedback."

However, The Press has learned sub postmasters will be informed of the results before then, possibly by February 1.

The spokesman said additional post offices could come under threat if some on the danger list were spared. "As we said at the outset, it could be that if we withdraw a branch from the closures list, we will need to replace it with another," he said.

"The Government has told us we need about 2,500 less post offices then we had at the start of the consultation process."

York Labour MP Hugh Bayley blasted post office bosses over the consultation process. "I feel extremely let down and angry at Post Office Ltd," he said.

"They are supposed to be public servants and they have failed to serve the public over this consultation."

He said the distances the company gave for alternative branches to the four slated for closure in the city were inaccurate, with many underestimated by a third.

Mr Bayley also called on Post Office Ltd to publish figures on savings following the last round of closures to hit York, saying the company had not provided evidence supporting the proposed closures of the Fulford, Haxby Road, Micklegate, or Clifton branches.

In a letter to post office bigwigs, he said: "Three years ago, you closed six branches in York.

"At the time you argued that customers at your Albemarle Road and Bishopthorpe Road branches would migrate to Micklegate branch and that this would maintain Micklegate's viability. Now you propose closing Micklegate."

Julian Sturdy, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for York Outer, who organised a campaign to save the Fulford branch, said the issue had stirred substantial public interest.

"I'd like to thank all the residents of Fulford for their support and also The Press," he said. "I think it's very important that residents' voices are heard, that's why we took the petition down to Number 10.

"We wanted to send a strong message to the Government that we really have to support local post offices like Fulford."