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POST Office Minister Pat McFadden has defended the Government's programme of service cuts in Oxfordshire - and said more than nine out of ten customers would experience "no change" in the branch they used.

Post office users are coming to terms with the news that 22 branches in the county will shut by the end of the summer.

Mr McFadden admitted the programme - which will lead to about 2,500 branches out of 13,000 closing across the country - was "difficult and unpopular".

But he called for "some sense of perspective" when it came to the Government's overall support for the network.

He told the House of Commons: "In the Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire area, 92 per cent of customers will experience no change in the post office branch that they use and more than 99 per cent of the area's population will either have no change in the branch they use or will remain within one mile by road of an alternative post office."

The axe fell despite a campaign to save the branches, which included a 6,000-signature petition handed in at 10 Downing Street.

Mr McFadden said: "I understand, as anyone would if they had been doing my job for the past nine months, that the process is very difficult for local communities.

"No one likes to see their post office close - even those who do not use it very much."

But he added: "The network loses £500,000 every day.

"Those losses have more or less doubled in the past few years.

"It is estimated that if it were run as a commercial network and left to survive without subsidy, it would amount to about 4,000 branches, with perhaps some more on the margins.

"We do not believe that is the kind of network the country wants."

6:10pm Thursday 8th May 2008

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