Bradford Road, Soothill and Staincliffe post offices in Batley and Fieldhead in Birstall are among 63 branches in West Yorkshire expected to close.

There are 10 planned closures altogether in North Kirklees with two in Dewsbury, two in Mirfield and two in Spen as well as those in Batley and Birstall.

On Tuesday, Post Office Ltd opened a six-week local public consultation on its Area Plan for West Yorkshire with the criteria and factors set by the government in its Response Document (DTI The Post Office Network, Government response to public consultation May 2007).

The Post Office said there would still be 282 branches open in West Yorkshire and 99.8 per cent of the area's population would either see no change, or would remain within one mile of an alternative branch.

Company network development manager for the North East Adrian Wales said: "Taking the decision to close any post office branch is always very difficult and we know it will cause concern to many of our customers. We want to ensure everyone who has any concern with Post Office services is both fully aware of the proposed changes and able to give views on them.

"We believe these proposals offer the best prospect for a sustainable way forward for Post Office services in this area, bearing in mind the minimum access criteria and the other factors we have to take into account."

Sub-postmaster Mohammed Mayet, who has been at Bradford Road for 20 years, said everyone had expected the proposals because direct payment of benefits into bank accounts had reduced customer numbers.

But he said Bradford Road was still a thriving community post office which provided a social gathering area for residents and a valuable service for local businesses, who also used it for banking services.

Pensioner Ethel Cox, a member of Soothill and District Forum, said Soothill could not afford to lose its post office.

"There are always people in the post office coming and going from all over, whether it is for their pensions and savings or lottery," said Mrs Cox.

"They are building more and more houses in Soothill then taking all our facilities away. It's ridiculous. "

Ismail Ravat, sub-postmaster at Fieldhead: "It was inevitable they were going to close the Fieldhead post office down. It's been going downhill for the last couple of years and it's not been busy. It's something that we've expected to happen. At the moment we are just hanging in the balance, waiting to see what's going to happen.

"People have been using other post offices, and the banks more and more and are not coming here as often as they were. Habits have been changing and this was just inevitable. For now we will just carry on as normal."

Austin Calvert, chairman of Fieldhead TRA: "To have the estate's post office close would be a disaster for Fieldhead, no doubt about it."

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