LANCASTER City Council is to ask the Post Office to hold back on its closure programme - until it meets councillors to discuss the impact on local communities.

It was a week ago that local people heard news that five Post Offices in Lancaster and Morecambe are on a hitlist for closure.

And yesterday (Wednesday) council leader Cllr Ian Barker tabled an urgent resolution calling for action from the city.

He said the Post Office consultation process which asks local people for their views on all planned closures is a 'sham'

Cllr Barker said yesterday: "The council has been trying to get the Post Office to discuss the future of its network in Lancaster for more than six months.

"We have been trying to see if there is anything constructive the council could do to help promote a sustainable post office network in Lancaster. The Post Office has spurned this opportunity and broken its promises to meet us."

He went on: "The Post Office describes these proposals as 'strategic' and says they are part of a 'network reinvention programme'. However, I am bound to say that I fail to detect any strategy at all. These appear to be opportunistic closures and there is no guarantee that the Post Office is prepared to invest to keep the remaining urban network."

Cllr Barker added that the Post Office has a chance to prove him wrong by talking constructively with the council - even at this late stage.