Sir.-The proposed closure of the South View sub post office will increase difficulties already faced by pensioners on a day-to-day basis due to age and lack of mobility.

Having recently spoken to our area Postwatch, based in Weymouth, I am informed that 6,000 sub post office managers asked Post Office Ltd to be shut down as they were no longer making a profit.

Post Office Ltd is looking at 3,000 sub post offices and I'm told those that have been closed accepted a severance pay package, but Postwatch says this is just returning the "franchise" invested in the sub post office by the sub postmaster at the beginning of the contract.

In the corporate business world, they trim off "dead wood" for the business to prosper, so I hope that Post Office Ltd does not look upon pensioners as "dead wood" - i.e. non-profit-making and therefore expendable!

If South View post office is closed, we will be offered Oakridge sub post office - which is 1.1 mile away, with no direct bus service - and the main post office at the Top of the Town, which, I estimate, is at least two-and-a-half miles away.

It takes two buses to get there, and no shelter for waiting in the rain, gales or snow - never mind the additional discomfort if the bus is late.

-Michael J Penny (pensioner), Lyford Road, Basingstoke.

Sir.-Royal Mail's reported plan to close up to 280 post offices will be a significant blow to a great many elderly people.

As Britain's largest provider of private sheltered housing, we know that many pensioners still rely on the post office as their source of cash for everyday spending.

Indeed, when choosing sites for new developments locally, we still place great importance on having a post office and other public amenities nearby.

Those of us lucky enough to be freely mobile, or to have a home computer for banking by internet, perhaps don't worry so much about the loss of post office counters - although they are all part of a depressing picture of public services in decline.

We have already seen rural post offices decimated over the last 15 years; now we face the loss of up to half of Britain's 560 town centre branches.

The situation is not helped by the major banks closing long-established branches in the high street.

Yes, there are more cashpoints, but elderly people are understandably wary of using credit cards and cash machines in the open street. They like to deal with human beings.

To the older person, the post office is more than a convenience - it is part of the community they live in.

Shutting local branches can only mean more reliance on the car or public transport, bring added expense to the user and more damage to the environment.

And it's not only people needing their pension money who are affected. Where do you take a parcel to be weighed if the post office has gone?

Almost every public service you can think of, from railways to refuse collection, seems unable to grasp the concept of "service" these days, while continually raising costs.

Do they not understand the well-proven saying "The customer is king"?

-Keith Lovelock, Chief Executive, McCarthy & Stone plc, Byfleet.