THE MP for East Yorkshire has expressed his outrage following cutbacks to the post office network in the county.

Last year, Post Office managers announced plans to close the branch in Marine Drive, Bridlington and downgrade five others to outreach services.

A consultation period ran until January 17 and a decision has now been made to go ahead as planned.

The Marine Drive post office will close and branches in Melbourne, Burton Fleming, Huggate, Wetwang and Barmston will be downgraded.

But Greg Knight believes the consultation period was just a public relations exercise.

In January he said: "If this consultation means anything, then the Post Office should listen and abandon their plans to cut back in services across the East Riding".

After learning that the Post Office has refused to reconsider their initial proposals to cut services in the East Riding Mr Knight said: "The Post Office didn't need to spend thousands of pounds to learn from local people that closing their post offices will cause great difficulty and distress, but they did - and for what?

"It seems that this consultation' was a total sham and just a pre-announcement of cuts with an invitation for comments, which have now been ignored."