HOPES are growing that a missing York post box could be replaced after a local shopkeeper volunteered to put a new one on his land.

Earlier this year, Royal Mail chiefs angered locals - including York MP Hugh Bayley - when they removed the post box from outside the former sub Post Office in Fishergate.

They said they been asked to take the post box away because it was on private land and the owners had asked for it to be removed.

But now Fields Fayre - a sandwich and confectioner's shop across the street - has said that private land in front of their premises could be used as a replacement site for the box.

Malcolm Bradley, of Fields Fayre, said: "Everybody round here is missing the post box. It just seemed a sensible thing to do - our forecourt is not really doing anything.

"There are a lot of old people who live round this area. If they want to post a letter or a card, I don't know where there is a post box now. There certainly isn't one at a close distance."

Andrew Coles, the Post Office's collection planning manager in York, said he saw no problems in putting a post box outside Fields Fayre, providing there were not major utilities' pipes underground.

He said a scan would be done to check this, and a new post box could be installed within six weeks.

"There has been quite a lot of interest in this particular post box. We do try to maintain the post boxes within the area," he added.

Local councillor Andy D'Agorne, who started a petition to get a new post box after the old one disappeared, said hope of a possible replacement was "great news".

York MP Hugh Bayley, who discovered the missing box when he tried to post letters there one morning, also welcomed the proposal.

He said: "It makes more sense to put a new post box in front of a parade of shops."

But he added that he was still pursuing the Post Office over a broken promise that no boxes would be removed after a wave of branch closures in York, saying he had written to minister Gerry Sutcliffe at the Department for Trade and Industry about the issue.

A Post Office spokeswoman said: "We responded to Mr Bayley when he raised this issue with us some time ago and, if he raises it again, we will, of course, respond to him again."

Updated: 12:32 Saturday, May 14, 2005