SIR - We are told the government will close 2,500 Post Office branches over the next year. The tone of the recent of correspondence in these columns on this question has been, to my mind, all too defensive.

The Liberal Democrats have a carefully-costed plan to free up post offices by divorcing them from the Royal Mail, at the same time selling off 49 per cent of the shares in order to raise £2m to finance modernisation.

These plans would not just protect our existing offices from closure, but would reinvigorate the sub-post office network. We would give them a whole series of new functions to perform within the communities they serve.

They could become viable by being, among other things, one-stop-shops for reporting problems to the Council, the Housing Trust and a police contact point.

In our plans sub-post offices could also act as agencies for bus and train travel, theatres, cinemas and concerts. This will all increase customer foot-fall and make these reinvented post offices profitable.

On this basis there would be scope actually to extend the network by re-establishing sub-post offices in our more deprived areas.

Coun John Cole (Lib-Dem, Baildon), Oakroyd Terrace, Baildon