Village where buying a stamp may cost you an overnight stay

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The village where buying a 36p stamp may cost you a bus journey and an overnight stay

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The Royal Mail has come under fire for plans to close a rural post office that would force customers to make an overnight trip just to buy a stamp or pick up their pensions.

Locals have condemned the "ridiculous" scenario that would see villagers in New Buckenham, Norfolk, having to endure torturous bus journeys or even an overnight stay to visit their nearest post office to just buy a 36p first class stamp.

The Post Office has claimed that customers would be able to take a five-minute bus ride to another branch following the closure of the New Buckenham Post Office.

However, the local bus timetable is incapable of ferrying customers to and from nearby villages within the same day.

The New Buckenham Post Office is one of the 2,500 branches earmarked for closure under the Government's plans to preserve the Post Office network's £150 million-a-year subsidy, and cut its estimated losses of £4 million a week.

"It is ridiculous to suggest that there is access to these other post offices, because you've got to get a bus and stay overnight. It is obvious that no one is going to want to do that," said Jon Clemo of the Norfolk Rural Community Council.

Terry Baines, the New Buckenham sub-postmaster, said it was "extraordinarily difficult" to travel on the buses between surrounding villages even though they were just a few miles apart.

"When you see a bus stop you assume that buses come quite frequently rather than just once a day. We have around 10 people in the village who are totally without transport and they have to pick up their pensions."

The Post Office Network Change Programme recommends that affected customers could take a five-minute bus journey to Old Buckenham as a first option or a 10-minute ride to Banham as a second.

Examination of the timetable shows that the Banham to New Buckenham bus leaves as the bus from New Buckenham comes in – meaning anyone making the original journey would effectively be stranded overnight.

Those going to Old Buckenham face an eight-hour round trip with several changes that is likely to deliver them at the Post Office when it is closed for lunch and leaves on the return journey within a few minutes of it opening again.

A spokesman for the Post Office Ltd said a final decision on the future of New Buckenham would be taken on June 2.

A spokesman for Norfolk County Council, which helps fund local buses, said the local authority was working with district councils to test all the recommendations made by the Royal Mail.