ONE of the lead stories on the front page of the April 3 edition of the Ham&High carried the declaration that the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, would save the 171 post offices under threat of closure in the capital if re-elected to the job of Lon

ONE of the lead stories on the front page of the April 3 edition of the Ham&High carried the declaration that the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, would save the 171 post offices under threat of closure in the capital if re-elected to the job of London leader.

Sadly this promise cannot be carried out, with the loss of well used sub-post offices in Weston Park and Ferme Park Road as a result of the Labour Government's cutbacks and reorganisation.

A closer examination of the sub post offices would have revealed that older people who collected their pensions also bought goods from the shop - sweets, tobacco and newspapers, for instance.

There are many other things of course that customers purchase in a sub-post office. With the loss of the postal counter, Weston Park (now ex-post office) lost one in four customers.

This is a tremendous loss to small family shops which are already reeling under the beginning of a wholesale recession. What are the odds on the council putting up the business rates to a desperate level?

The effect of the two closed branches on the post office in Crouch End Broadway is chilling. I spent 25 minutes in a line of customers that reached out into the street. Only three or four serving positions were open, out of seven. Currency changing occupied two of these counter assistant interminably.

I do not look forward to the bleak winter and standing in line in the wind and rain.

PETER FLOYD

Ferme Park Road, N8

Are the queues beginning to stretch unreasonably at Crouch End Broadway's post office? Email your view to letters@hamhigh.co.uk or send them to Letters to the Editor, Ham&High Broadway, 100a Avenue Road, Hampstead NW3 3HF