More post offices will close as a result of the Government's decision not to renew the Post Office Card Account in 2010, warns Kingston MP Edward Davey.

He is worried that the withdrawal of the account, which provides ten per cent of a subpostmaster's pay, could help to bankrupt subpostmasters forcing more post offices to close.

"We've allowed national policies to happen which have made closure inevitable. The biggest negative effect has been the closure in the Surbiton-Berrylands area - quite a lot of people are having to come down to the Surbiton main office, and the queues there are quite notorious."

Anil Patel, subpostmaster at the post office in Hawk's Road, Kingston, said the Government is slowly chipping away at the post office's services. "We can't just sit here selling stamps, when our services are taken away our running costs are still the same."

His post office has had to extend its opening hours to stay afloat. He has also had to refurbish the shop front and is considering applying for an off-licence status.

Petitions against the cut in services in his shop have attracted over 1,000 signatures.

Another of the Post Office's main services which is under threat is passport applications. Passport offices will soon be set up to deal with the large number of applications received daily.

As well as this, the Post Office's national contract to sell TV licences was recently revoked by the BBC, leaving them without a potential five million customers.

Conservative MEP for London Syed Kamall said: "I fear that removing yet another key local service from the post office will endanger many shops that act as a hub for our local communities and risk yet more people - especially pensioners - being caught without a valid licence."