FURIOUS pensioners are launching a petition to save their local post office.If the axe falls on Wherstead Road branch it will leave pensioners and other local residents with a lengthy walk over the Stoke Bridge to Fore Street office or a hike up the hill to Maidenhall.

FURIOUS pensioners are launching a petition to save their local post office.

If the axe falls on Wherstead Road branch it will leave pensioners and other local residents with a lengthy walk over the Stoke Bridge to Fore Street office or a hike up the hill to Maidenhall.

Patricia Frost calls at Wherstead Road every week to collect the pension for her elderly mother.

And she is furious the other pensioners who depend on the service will be left out on a limb.

She said: "There are hundreds of old people there who can hardly make it to that post office - how are they going to manage?

"My mum couldn't believe it when she found out. She said she doesn't know she will do if it closes and I'm not around to help her."

Royal Mail chiefs announced yesterday five branches are to close in Ipswich, but held out the hope they would reconsider if public opinion demanded it.

Mrs Frost said there had been no inkling of the threat to the office's future, but it was the talk of the mainly elderly customers gathered there yesterday morning.

She described an air of anger and said regular customers at the branch were mounting a petition to save it.

Ipswich MP Chris Mole has added his voice to the anger over the proposals, calling on mail bosses to consider reversing their decision to axe the west Ipswich office and three more on the other side of town.

He said: "These closures will cut off people near Stoke Bridge from vital postal services and leave east Ipswich stripped bare of neighbourhood post offices.

"The Post Office needs to make more effort to ensure its neighbourhood offices are more viable."

Mr Mole said he had written to mail bosses and would hold a meeting with them to discuss the plans.

Paul West, Tory parliamentary spokesman for Ipswich, was also angered by the plans.

He said: "Local people will no longer have an alternative when their local post office closes.

"It is not realistic to expect the elderly or those with small children to walk extra distances."

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