THERE isn't much room in the post office in Gainford, but that's partly because of the throng of late-afternoon customers queuing at the counter.

People are being given their benefits, posting parcels for Christmas and checking the range of Christmas cards.

Although there is no prospect of this bustling post office closing as a result of the Government plans announced yesterday, those present are still keen to stress the key role it plays in village life.

Yesterday, the Government said that 2,500 sub-post offices would close in about 18 months, reflecting the £4m losses the post office network was making every week.

It also unveiled plans to set up "innovative" outlets for remote communities, including mobile post offices and services offered through village halls, community centres and pubs.

Not surprisingly, the heavily trailed announcement - although sweetened with an investment package of £1.7bn for the network and a continued stay of execution for the annual £150m rural subsidy payment for rural post offices - has not gone down well in many areas.

Small communities such as Gainford that retain a full-time post office are keenly protective of it.

One of those queuing, Brian Blackburn, a former secretary of the village hall committee in Gainford, says he could not imagine life without the post office.

He says: "It is particularly important to the village and I do not know how we would get on without it.

"What with other post offices closing, this one could do with being double the size."

Another couple say they have travelled from Ingleton to use its services after their post office closed.

Meanwhile, taking a break in the adjoining house next door, Anne Pratt, who runs the post office, is at pains to stress what it brings to the village.

She has been here 29 years and is well-known in the community.

The post office in Gainford recently collected 400 signatures in an attempt to protect some of its services.

These include the Post Office Card Account (Poca) - the successor to the pension book, allowing people to draw their benefits with a single card.

It had been threatened with the axe, but will be replaced with another version of the account when it ends in 2010.

Post offices have complained that in recent years they been stripped of a number of services, while items such as TV licences and car tax discs, once post office staples, are now available online.

Mrs Pratt, who is secretary of the North Yorkshire and Durham branch of the Federation of Sub-Postmasters, says: "We have businesses in the village that use our banking facilities and people would certainly miss us if Poca was taken away.

"People do not like going elsewhere for jobs that have been traditionally done at the post office because they like the privacy and the way things are done here. We are still busy, but it is a case of use us or lose us when it comes to the services we have remaining."

Mrs Pratt is not a fan of mobile post offices, which are replacing those outlets that have closed in some rural areas.

She says: "They seem like a stop-gap and a sop by the Government.

"It's like an ice cream van that people have to queue up outside when it turns up - fine in the summer, but not in this weather.

"The regular post office is like the hub in a wheel in a village - a place where people meet and exchange views. It is a bit of a focal point.

Elsewhere in Gainford - which lies on the main Darlington to Barnard Castle road - people are equally keen to preserve their post office.

Charlie Freeman, who works at Teesdale Sports Centre, but has lived in Gainford for 19 years, says: "The post office is pivotal. It is the only place in the village that sells stamps for a start.

"Bigger towns like Darlington probably do not need so many local post offices, but here it is eight miles either way until you find the nearest place."

Gainford vicar the Reverend Maureen Alderson is also happy to extol the virtues of the village post office.

She says: "I can see the Government's point of view in that you have to run these things as a business.

"But then you think about the old lady who lives four doors along from the post office who the only time in the day she goes out is to go there.

"That is virtually as far as she goes. If the post office was taken away, she would have nowhere to go and would be virtually housebound.

"We recently lost one of our local shops and to lose the post office does not bear thinking about.

"People talk about it being the centre of the community. It is more than just a post office, it is a natural meeting place."