A CROWD of wheelchair users, teachers, business owners and politicians stopped rush hour traffic in a Bushey street during the latest protest against plans to close a local post office.

Hundreds of handwritten and typed letters, petitions and telephone calls in support of The Moatfield office in Harcourt Road have already made their way to Post Office Ltd and Downing Street and three stacks of further documents are being sent next week.

These letters include a wordless letter of objection consisting of dozens of symbols and pictures put together by Ben Robertson, 23, who has severe learning disabilities and for whom the post office offers a lifeline of independence.

He lives with a disabled friend in a house near the office, funded through a pioneering scheme by Hertfordshire County Council and Watford Mencap.

Ben’s mother, Pamela, said: “The Government is pushing to integrate people into the community and give them independence. We have worked so hard to achieve that and now the same Government wants to isolate them by taking the post office away.”

These concerns echo those of Meadow Wood School, a nearby school for children with physical disabilities, and hundreds of elderly residents in three sheltered homes, recently printed in the Watford Observer.

Following the complaints, independent postal service watchdog Postwatch sent two officers to the site who voiced their own concerns with the proposals.

Marie Casey, Postwatch’s network advisor for South East England said the closure could disadvantage more people than any of the other post offices closed after a consultation last month.

Alongside the effect on local residents, she said the loss of the “integral” post office would damage a “thriving shopping precinct”.

The Moatfield office has been added to Post Office Ltd’s closure list after four other post offices in Essex, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire were kept open.

Heather Maddox, the headteacher of Little Reddings Primary School, one of four schools that regularly use the post office, Crestel Partnerships, who are overseeing a forthcoming development of 190 homes in the area, and all the local shops have written or signed letters of protest.

On Wednesday, the issue dominated a full meeting of Hertsmere Borough Council – councillors from all political parties taking turns to unanimously criticise the proposals.

Council leader Morris Bright said he was “stupefied” at the reasoning behind the cost cutting plan and the fact that no one from Post Office Ltd had visited the office or area.

Mukund Brahambhatt, postmaster at the Moatfield office, said he hoped the firm’s network development manager Gary Herbert would have time to read all the letters addressed to him.

He added: “People are so angry. It really breaks my heart to see this.”

A public meeting on the issue will be held next Wednesday, September 24, at 5pm in Little Reddings School, Harcourt Road.