Sir - Like many local residents, we have been campaigning to protect our post offices for over a year now - we even presented a petition of hundreds of signatures to 10 Downing Street but no one seems to be listening.

When we hear that the post office at Dalton Barracks is under threat and forces families will struggle to contact family members serving in war zones, it seems the world has gone mad.

But as your article pointed out last week this is just one example of dozens across Oxfordshire, and we need assurances from the Government that if they are going to insist on these closures they will ensure that alternative services will be provided before existing services are forced to close.

The Labour Government already holds the record for closing post offices faster than any other and, by the time of the next election, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown will have closed over one third of the entire post office network.

Many local communities will end up losing their only shop and suffer a hammer blow to community life.

No account has been taken of the needs of the elderly, of disabled people or of the most vulnerable residents - and they are the ones who will lose out most.

In the end though, there is little hope for a solution until sub-post offices have greater freedoms to offer more commercial products and more Post Offices can be 'one stop shops' for local and central government services so they can become viable in their own right.

Joanne Bowlt, Oxford Nicola Blackwood, Oxford