DEFIANT post office customers are preparing for a fight after last week’s shocking closure threats.

As an axe hovers over the branches in Bollinbrook, Broken Cross, Gawsworth and Sutton, residents fear they will lose their "lifeline" stores.

And the potential loss of the Broken Cross store, on Chelford Road, is a bitter pill to swallow for postmaster Alan White, 44, after it won the last North West Post Office of the Year competition.

He said: "I’m trying to encourage my customers to write and help turn this around.

"I have no idea why we are under threat, of 14,500 post offices only 3,000 make a profit and we are one of them."

Bollington campaigner Claire Crosbie will today rally troops to join her in a show of support for their local office and shop and has already received support from Macclesfield MP Sir Nicholas Winterton and Councillor Sylvia Roberts. Bollington Cross Primary School pupils will gather with a big campaign poster they have made, outside the Ovenhouse Lane post office (Wednesday, June 18). Yesterday, Coun Roberts said: "It’s a lifeline, it services a community which relies heavily on the post office.

"It’s all very well to say there is another one 0.7 miles away, but you have to take into account the terrain, it‘s very hilly that older people struggle to negotiate."

Claire, 71, of Windsor Close, hopes to encourage members of the community to endorse the campaign and write to the Post Office themselves.

She said: "It’s not a ‘protest’, it’s a sign of our support. They can ignore a petition with a list of names on it but it is harder to ignore a pile of letters."

Tom Funnell, 38, Post Master at Bollington Cross post office, is in support of the community efforts to save the post office, and as owner of the adjacent general store, is currently concentrating his efforts on the shop.

He said: "I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. Obviously if the post office does go I need to make sure everything is in place so the shop can remain."

Adrian Whittaker, 30, has been post master at Sutton post office on Tunnicliffe Road, for less than six months and is asking all his customers to sign a petition in the shop. Bollinbrook has been closed since 2007 – but if it is placed on the chopping board, all chances of re-opening will be scuppered.

The Post Office decide which offices stay and go using certain "access criteria" and the government have said that 90 per cent of the population should be within a mile of the nearest branch and are holding a six-week public consultation for members of the community to register their concerns. If you want to speak out about the closures, representations should be received by July 21. Write to: Richard Lynds, Network Development Manager, c/o National Consultation Team, FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM, email: consultation@postoffice.co.uk or call the customer helpline on 08457 223344.