A SUB-POSTMISTRESS has publicly retracted her criticisms of a Labour MP over the issue of post office closures.

Cheryl Clark of the Simpasture branch in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, accused MP Phil Wilson of "running with the foxes and playing with the hounds" when he joined North- East MPs in backing the controversial closure programme on Friday.

But Mrs Clark, who is running the campaign to save her post office, has now withdrawn the comments she made to The Northern Echo about the Sedgefield MP and the two have made a joint pledge to defend post offices that are "well used" by the community.

Mr Wilson visited the post office this weekend to receive a petition of more than 4,100 people who want the Simpasture branch to stay open.

Mrs Clarke went on to criticise the Conservatives' proposal to suspend the closures, accusing the party of trying to score "brownie points" with voters.

She said: "Initially, when I was told Mr Wilson had voted against the resolution I was outraged, particularly because he has been so supportive of our campaign.

"But I have spoken with him and read the Tories' resolution and think he was right not to vote with them. I would have done the same if I was sat in Parliament.

"It wanted to postpone closures for six months, which I couldn't have coped with. We have had months of this upset already and putting it off doesn't help anyone.

"There was no solution put forward, just an attempt to gain some brownie points. The Tories also went against the £150m subsidy of the network which would mean even more than 2,500 post offices would close, we worked out just town centre branches would be left.

"Mr Wilson and I have always agreed that some post offices need to close and we need to fight to make sure it is the right ones, not branches like mine where the community is desperate to keep it."

Mr Wilson has pledged to help keep Simpasture post office open as it is "well used" by the community.

He said: "Both me and Cheryl agree that the post office network has to be rationalised. We have hundreds of post offices around the country that are costing the taxpayer a lot of money.

"The Government has subsidised the post office to the tune of £150m per year and if that money was not there, then there would be even more closed than there are now.

"The Government proposed that the subsidies continue not that the closures be suspended for six months as the Tories have.

"If we can build a case to keep this post office open then we will work on it together because we don't want to make the wrong decision.

"As you can see, this post office is very well used. It would be remiss of me not to get involved in this process."