NEARLY 2,000 people have so far signed a protest petition calling for a post office threatened with closure to be saved from the axe.Signatures are today still being collected and supporters of the in-store sub office at Safeway in Felixstowe are now being urged to also make their views known to watchdog Postwatch and the Post Office Ltd.

NEARLY 2,000 people have so far signed a protest petition calling for a post office threatened with closure to be saved from the axe.

Signatures are today still being collected and supporters of the in-store sub office at Safeway in Felixstowe are now being urged to also make their views known to watchdog Postwatch and the Post Office Ltd.

"There is an enormous strength of feeling about the decision to get rid of this post office," said town and district councillor Mike Ninnmey .

"It serves an area of 9,000 people plus all the companies of the port and we have already lost the post office in the south of the town.

"The excellent thing about this post office is that it has full services where many sub post offices cannot handle items such as car tax.

"If it goes, Felixstowe, a community of more than 25,000 people, will only have one post office able to give a full service – its main one in Hamilton Road – and that will bring added disruption with all the extra people having to use that facility, come into town and park.

"We really need to find new tenants for this post office or a replacement building and we need to work quickly."

Safeway is being taken over by supermarket giant Morrisons. While they will not run the outlet at the store in Grange Farm Avenue, they are quite happy for a new tenant to be found to keep it going.

"It is a real shame Morrisons are not interested in running post offices – having it as part of a neighbourhood complex is surely of mutual benefit to their trade and the community," said Mr Ninnmey.

"The 2,000 people who have signed the petition are 2,000 users of the post office who are also potential shoppers at Morrisons."

Felixstowe Town Council is to write to Post Office Ltd to see how energetically it is pursuing new premises or recruiting new tenants for the sub office, and also ask Suffolk Coastal council's economic development officer for help.

Morrisons has received a string of complaints about its decision to give Post Office Ltd notice that it intends to end the franchise for running the post office.

Roger Owen, property director for Morrison Supermarkets plc, said: We have given Post Office Ltd ample notice for them to find alternative users and operators for this facility.

"If that facility is to remain in the store on a lease basis then I am more than happy with that, but the company will not be reconsidering its position in terms of continuing to operate this facility ourselves. That is not our line of business."

n The petition can be signed at the Basics Charity Shop next to Safeway. Postwatch can be contacted at 4 High Street Passage, Ely, Cambs, CB7 4NB.

WEBLINK: www.postwatch.co.uk

n What do you think? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk