The campaign to save Bradford's busiest city-centre post office escalated today as plans were made for a public meeting with invitations going to MPs and leading organisations.

CARE - the Community Organisation for the Regen-eration of Estates - is distributing petition forms against a proposal by the Post Office to close its Exchange branch in Bank Street.

And a leading city-centre lawyer is backing the effort to save it. Ram Saroop, treasurer and Past President of Bradford Law Society said: "This proposal is absolutely outrageous."

Mr Saroop, a partner with Read Dunn Connell solicitors based at the nearby Wool Exchange, said the firm would make representations to protest about the closure plan. "It is more convenient for most people," he said. "I use this post office daily."

Rosie Watson, Bradford official of the Communica-tion Workers Union, said it was organising a public meeting later this month.

The organisation has been in meetings with Post Office Ltd about its plans to close Bank Street and improve the other city-centre post offices in Darley Street and Sun-bridge Road.

She said: "It is obviously a purely commercial decision.

"The building is leased and there are concerns the rents for properties in that location will go sky-high when the Broadway shopping development is built."

She said some of the 18 staff were expected to be relocated to other post offices but there might be some job losses.

Mike Stocks, chairman of CARE, warned that access to the Darley Street post office was a problem for many customers. "As a person the wrong side of 60 I would find it difficult to walk up the hill to Darley Street as do many other people," he said.

"I don't accept this post office doesn't make money. People don't go to the counters to buy stamps - there is a machine for that. They do all sorts of business there."

Bradford North MP Terry Rooney said he had received dozens of calls since last week's announcement.

"There is widespread concern and the proposal must be stopped," he said.

A Post Office spokesman said staff would be asked for their preferences and they would not normally expect compulsory redundancies, although some people might opt to leave. She denied the rent of the property was an issue in the proposal to close the post office. "The reason is that the post office is not profitable," she said.

The proposals are part of a major re-structuring programme by the Post Office of 9,000 of its offices. It believes there are too many post offices for too little business.

Exchange Post Office could close in February. A public consultation period on the proposed closure ends on Tuesday, September 28.