Post Office closures ‘will make elderly lonely’

Closing post offices in rural parts of Britain may fuel loneliness among the elderly, the Citizens Advice Bureau has suggested.

One in five older Britons in the countryside said they would lose contact with neighbours and friends if their local Post Office branch closed, a survey by the bureau has found.

It came as the Citizens Advice Bureau urged the Government to keep funding rural Post Offices or face a crisis, ahead of Wednesday’s Budget.

Thousands of rural Post Offices are under threat after ministers began a review into their “relevance” last year. They have yet to publish a report.