Post offices in the Bradford district will be offered £60,000 "compensation" to shut up shop under a massive closure programme announced by the Government.

About 2,500 of the UK's 14,000 post office branches - 18 per cent of the total - will close.

If the closures were spread evenly across the country then the five parliamentary constituencies of Bradford North, Bradford West, Bradford South, Shipley and Keighley could face losing about 17 of their 95 branches.

The move is likely to provoke outrage across the area, which has already lost more than 22 branches in the past six years.

Industry secretary Alistair Darling told MPs yesterday the current network was "unsustainable" because of declining business and soaring losses, which had doubled in only a year from £2 million a week to £4m a week.

Sub-postmasters in struggling branches will be offered about £60,000 in compensation to leave the network as part of a "structured programme" of closures.

The closures are expected to start next summer and will continue for 18 months, reducing the size of the network to about 11,760.

Mr Darling did, however, pledge that the annual £150m subsidy to help rural branches stay open would be extended beyond 2008 until 2011 and the Government would provide an investment package of £1.7 billion over five years.

A major consultation exercise will seek views on the proposals until March 8, 2007.

It will then be up to the Post Office to choose which branches are culled.

But the Government yesterday published new access criteria for post offices, stating that 90 per cent of the population should be within a mile of a branch.

In rural areas, 95 per cent of the population should be within three miles, doubling to six miles in remote areas.

Mr Darling said: "People are simply not using post offices as they once did."

He proposed setting up 500 outlets for small, remote communities such as mobile post offices and services based in village halls, community centres and pubs.

Peter Finlay, north-east regional secretary for the National Federation of SubPostmasters and a postmaster in Menston, said the move back to setting up satellite offices could work.

He also welcomed the compensation offer as many postmasters had outstanding bank loans.

Mr Finlay said: "It could be the way forward to ensure communities get post office services but it is the destruction of the rural network and the social service people enjoy that comes with it.

"For some it could be the only interaction they have with the rest of the world."

MEP Edward McMillan-Scott criticised the decision while on a visit to the Royal Mail Sorting Office in Knaresborough.

He said: "Alistair Darling will be despised for the savage attack on Britain's rural fabric. It is not only crass timing but also a very poor decision to axe these cherished lifelines."

Postwatch Northern England accepted the financial losses and fewer transactions could not continue.

A spokesman said: "To let the current drip-drip of unplanned closures continue would be irresponsible and would undoubtedly lead to some areas losing access to post office services.

"The Government's consultation on future funding and structural arrangements for the post office network is the first step in putting in place a strategic plan."

If services could be run by mobile units, it made sense, he added.

Mr Darling also announced a new Post Office Account through which people could receive their benefits would be set up to replace the Post Office Card Account which is to be scrapped in 2010.

e-mail: newsdesk@bradford.newsquest.co.uk

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