No more post office closures? Try telling Bridgwater that .

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Post offices have a bright future under the coalition – with no more branch closure programmes, Liberal Democrats were told yesterday.

But the pledge might sound pretty hollow to the people of one of Somerset’s biggest towns – who are being told to travel up to 3.5 miles to use a post office.

Post Office Minister Ed Davey told the Lib Dem conference in Birmingham: “We had the obscene spectacle of a Labour government paying the owners of sub-post offices to pack up and go home.

“While we will work with communities to find replacements when the sub-postmaster retires, Labour just closed them down. With your money.

“Well not any more.”

Mr Davey said some councils are giving the Post Office contracts for services such as council tax payment and parking permits, and he urged other town halls to do the same.

He said many banks already let their customers use the Post Office – and this Friday Nat West will join in, leaving only HSBC and Santander snubbing the idea.

“Frankly, that’s really disappointing. So today, I hope you will join me in calling on them to think again.”

Mr Davey said they were spending £1 billion on modernising 4,000 post offices, helping them cut queues and costs. And he announced a consultation on whether the Post Office should become a co-operative, giving subpostmasters, employees and customers a chance to have a say in how it is run.

But Lindsay Mackie of the Post Bank Coalition said over 240 branches shut in the 18 months from April 2009 – even without a programme of compensated closures.

“Neither the Post Office nor the Government has produced a viable strategy to maintain the network at 11,500 post office outlets or increase its revenue.”

Around 2,500 post offices were axed under Labour, including 200 across the West.

But Shadow Business Minister Nia Griffith has said more than 400 branches have shut as part of a secret closure programme.

They have been designated as “long-term temporarily closed” and the Post Office has taken away their computers for security reasons, she revealed.

In Bridgwater, problems started when the newsagents housing the town centre post office closed on September 5.

A deal was done to put a branch on the site of the demolished Sedgemoor Splash swimming pool, but it could not open because of technical problems. A notice on the door advised customers to travel 3.5 miles to North Petherton, to Wembdon two miles away, or use a branch on the town’s Hamp estate.

Angry town resident John Tarr said: “Bridgwater is an expanding town of around 40,000 people, if this is the best that Royal Mail can do, heaven help us all.”

Post Office Ltd said: “We do not yet have a confirmed date for reopening the branch but we will notify all our customers once this has been established.”