MORE than 100 people packed into a protest meeting to launch a legal campaign aimed at saving Weymouth’s Buxton Road post office from closure.

The event at St Nicholas Church, organised by Buxton Road residents Michael and Mary Watson, heard postmaster Roger Hayre speak about the unusually high number of disabled and elderly people using the post office.

The meeting was told that 18 per cent of residents nationally living within one mile of a post office were over 60 but for Buxton Road this figure rose to 27 per cent, nearly all with a life-long condition or disability. There are also nine homes for the severely mentally ill in the area and several care homes.

Dr Watson, who worked in the area for 20 years before he retired, said a Post Office decision to close the branch at Buxton Road would have ‘a devastating effect on local residents’.

He added that one 97-year-old woman he had spoken to who gets a home help for two hours a week said: “If my help has to go to Weymouth town centre to collect my pension, how will she have time to do my cleaning?”

Dr Watson said: “It’s cases like these that indicate the human tragedy that these closures cause.

“One blind service user is happy to withdraw cash from the ATM at Buxton Road because it’s inside and he feels protected from mugging. Similar facilities in the town centre or in the post office at Broadmeadow Road are outdoors and much less safe for him to use.

“Indeed, unlike Broadmeadow Road post office, there is a large car-park and easy wheelchair accessibility at Buxton Road.”

Westham West councillor Gill Taylor offered advice on how to run such a campaign while Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate Coun Ros Kayes laid out the basis in law for the campaign to challenge the post office closure under Section 49A of the Disability Discrimin-ation Act.

She said that a test case linked to the closure of Hastings Old Town post office has been brought against the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business and Regulatory Reform and awaits High Court judgement.

She added: “Basically what this case does is give the campaign group a strong legal basis from which to ask the Post Office to defer the closure of Buxton Road Office until after the judgement and the hearing of any appeals. I fully expect this to go to the European Court which would probably take about 18 months.

“Another alternative for the group is to go for a judicial review. If the Hastings case is successful then the Post Office may well have to reconsider the entire closure programme nationwide.”

A new campaign group committee is to be formed and will meet in January to plan its next move. Anyone interested in joining the campaign should contact Mrs Watson at 50 Buxton Road, Weymouth DT4 9PN.