Royal Mail is not making enough effort to find a new home for a sub-post office, a councillor has claimed.

Residents of Summertown, in Oxford, have had to travel to Wolvercote or Jericho since Martin's newsagents, in Banbury Road, closed its branch to make way for a Costa Coffee last month.

Although Royal Mail has advertised the vacancy for more than two months, Liberal Democrat city councillor Jean Fooks believes it is not making enough effort to find a new location.

She said: "They are encouraging people to ring them but they are not providing the support necessary in the sense of the grant needed to set up.

"One doesn't feel that they are being quite as pro-active as they could be."

Mrs Fooks said she had told Royal Mail that Westlake Pharmacy had previously expressed an interest but, when she called to see what progress it had made, was told that Royal Mail staff hadn't been able to get in contact with managers.

She said: "It is not what you would call full-scale problem solving."

Mrs Fooks was also unhappy that she had only received a phone call in response to a petition from 500 residents demanding that a local branch be kept open even if it meant using a temporary office.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: "We did receive Councillor Fooks' letter and spoke to her five days later to address her concerns.

"We did explain it would not be possible to provide a mobile branch in this case as our two mobiles are currently in long-term use and are used only in extreme circum- stances.

"In the meantime there are several branches within a radius of just over a mile.

Mrs Fooks said: "I would have thought I would get a proper reply to a petition of 500 signatures. Summertown desperately and definitely needs a Post Office.

"It is not looking good - we are told we cannot have a temporary one, we are not sufficiently in need, but the alternatives are seriously inadequate."

On Wednesday, hundreds of sub-post masters from all over the country - including Bampton and Great Milton in Oxfordshire - held a rally in Westminster demanding the Government give more support.