A LOT of people are very angry at the closure of the post offices at Little Downham and St John s Road Ely. Many of them spoke to me during the period of consultation but it appears that this was a sham consultation, as the decision had already been taken

A LOT of people are very angry at the closure of the post offices at Little Downham and St John's Road Ely. Many of them spoke to me during the period of consultation but it appears that this was a sham consultation, as the decision had already been taken. I was deeply shocked. The final announcement showed yet again the absence of joined-up decision making in Government and a complete lack of understanding of the problems faced by scattered rural communities. How would Gordon Brown like it if he had to travel from Oxlode to Ely High Street to post a parcel?

Both these post offices were well used and offered a service to those who could not reach, or were fed up with queuing at, the post office in Ely High Street. We are told that the St John's Road closure will be held back until November to give the High Street post office time to improve. Improvements have been promised before and, anyway, who will now decide that adequate progress has been made? The Post Office? Perhaps the county council will follow Essex's lead and be prepared to support, on economic and social grounds, the post offices we need.

Dr Beeching took an axe to the railways in the 1960s, an irreversible decision that we now regret. Do we learn nothing from history?

JEREMY FRIEND-SMITH

Liberal Democrat District councillor

Ely South