YOUR friendly local post office was once a vital part of British life.

It was the place you popped to for stamps, or to mail letters. Pensioners used it to collect their pensions - and often ended up stopping for a chat. In villages, where post offices often doubled as a village store, they were important meeting points - as well as the place to buy milk and eggs.

Sadly, local post offices have been disappearing fast. Partly, perhaps, because we send far fewer letters now - relying instead on email, texts and Instagram. And partly because the Post Office has been determined to rationalise - greatly reducing the number of local sub-branches.

Even in a city like York, it is often quite a hike to find a Post Office. And now yet another one has closed - hopefully only temporarily - because of a row over the Post Office's Horizon broadband-based payment system.

Wendy Martin, sub postmistress at Crichton Avenue, says she has been left hundreds of pounds out of pocket because Horizon is unable to cope with demand.

The broadband connection regularly cuts out, she says - which stops payments processed in the shop being picked up.

She has been left hundreds of pounds down at the end of the month, and covering the shortfall herself. She has now closed the shop until the situation is sorted out.

She isn't alone in experiencing problems. About 100 other sub-postmasters claim they were wrongly prosecuted for theft, fraud or false accounting because of cash shortfalls arising from the same software.

What a ridiculous mess. The Post Office was once a byword for friendly reliability. Not any more.

It needs to get this system sorted out quickly.