POST office closures and the fight to protect local services will be thrust under the election spotlight tonight in York.

The city's main election candidates are due to speak at a public meeting, at Fishergate Primary School, organised by campaigners behind the proposed Sustainable Communities Bill.

Supporters backing the bid are petitioning MPs to create a law to cement the future of the nation's post offices, pubs, and corner shops.

The meeting comes in the wake of a public outcry over the closure of seven post office branches in York, including Fishergate Post Office, and amid a spate of shop closures in the Fishergate area.

Ron Bailey, head of Local Works, the pressure group behind the Private Member's Bill, said the legislation had cross-party support from more than 240 MPs. If passed, he said it would turn politics on its head, with greater powers handed to town halls and residents.

Mr Bailey said: "Localism in this Bill means York's citizens and York's local government deciding their own indicators of sustainability and setting their own targets."

Labour's Hugh Bayley said parts of the draft Bill appeared too bureaucratic and put too much focus on consultation which, he said, the Post Office ignored when it culled York branches with a "pre-set agenda".

He is campaigning for industry watchdogs to be given more teeth to fight closures and called for post offices to collect council tax or rents to make branches more viable and boost customer numbers.

Liberal Democrat Andrew Waller said plans were in hand for York council to push more business to post offices.

He criticised Mr Bayley for backing a Bill in 2000 that gave the Post Office more commercial freedom and said this made the subsequent York cull "inevitable".

Updated: 10:32 Thursday, April 28, 2005