SOUTH Oxfordshire District Council is urging Post Office Ltd to keep open the threatened post offices at Crowmarsh and Stanton St John.

The council has written officially asking for the closure threat to be lifted.

Council leader Ann Ducker said they were not making any representations regarding the third south Oxfordshire place to be threatened, Little Wittenham.

She said: "We acknowledge the post office there is not well used and that there are excellent facilities close at hand at Clifton Hampden."

But she said there were sound arguments for keeping the other two post offices open.

Mrs Ducker said: "The council is in the very difficult position of knowing that by saving one post office it may inadvertently lead to the closure of another but we have carried out a thorough analysis of the implications of the two closures.

"We do not think the business cases for closing them stack up or outweigh the significant impact they will have on local communities."

She said one reason for closing Crowmarsh may be the proximity of Wallingford post office.

She said: "Wallingford's is in a poor location and already overstretched with queues regularly extending on to the pavement so we have real concerns about its capacity to cope with the extra custom the closure of Crowmarsh and the projected growth of the town and surrounding villages will create."

And she said Stanton St John was a problem because there was limited or no public transport to the alternative post offices and Stanton St John served a much bigger community than just the village.

She said: "For some customers, even by private car, the round trip to the nearest alternative in Wheatley is going to be up to 14 miles."

She urged Post Office Ltd to recognise the "sound reasons" for keeping the two village post offices open.

Both post offices had local MP Boris Johnson at demonstrations to keep them open and he pledged his support.