Post Offices: Closures

Mr. Paice
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many post offices closed in villages and towns with populations smaller than 10,000 inhabitants in 2006-07.

Jim Fitzpatrick
This is an operational matter for Post Office Ltd (POL). I understand from POL that the post office branches in settlements with populations smaller than 10,000 inhabitants are classified as rural branches. Also that for 2006-07 the net number of rural post office branch closures was 128.