A sub-postmaster today warned that whole communities could be devastated by Government plans to change the way benefits are paid.

Andrew Gardner, who runs Kirkbymoorside Post Office, said: "If you take us away what will replace us?"

Andrew Gardner, who runs Kirkbymoorside Post Office, said: "People collect their money from here and spend it at the shops nearby. If their benefits are paid straight into their bank accounts then they will not be doing that and those shops will wither.

"At the post office we know if people have been in hospital, if someone has had a baby, if someone's child has passed their exams.

"If you take us away what will replace us?"

He described the Government plans to get many benefits paid directly into bank accounts instead of over post office counters as "folly" and said: "Nobody has asked the public about this. It is basic marketing to ask customers what they want."

Mr Gardner said the post office's petition was being signed by everyone who came into the building and that customers were spreading the word and getting more and more people to sign it.

He said: "There was one man who came all the way from Farndale just to sign the petition. I'm not the emotional type, but I could have been then."

Meanwhile, Brian Fletcher, who has been sub-postmaster at Walmgate Post Office, York, since 1970, said that Government promises that people would still be able get their benefits at post offices were not enough.

He said that though some people would still come to his post office to collect benefits, many others would not.

"Younger pensioners are used to banks and card machines, so if we lose them we also lose the sale of the three or four items they would also have bought when they were in here," said Mr Fletcher.

"Then multiply that by how many people we lose."

Mr Fletcher gave his full support to the Evening Press Counter Attack campaign, which aims to fight the Government's proposals.

He said: "It keeps the matter in the public eye and lets the Government know the strength of feeling there is."

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