A MOBILE post office van serving South Oxfordshire is to have its hours at existing villages cut in order to serve more places that no longer have a post office.

The service, run by the postmaster at Warborough near Wallingford, currently serves Dorchester, Stadhampton, Checkendon, Tetsworth, Stoke Row, Nettlebed and Woodcote.

However the Post Office now wants the postmaster to drive to Upper Wargrave and Winnersh 20 miles away near Reading, staying on Monday, March 2.

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The company has said this is a 'temporary' service, 'while we continue to seek a permanent solution' to the fact that these places do not have a post office.

However it means that all the timings that it serves villages will change.

For example, the postmaster currently visits Stoke Row on a Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, but from March 2 that will be cut to Tuesday and Friday.

In Checkendon, the van currently stops for two hours every Friday from 9am to 11am, but that will now change to just one hour from midday to 1pm.

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At Winnersh the mobile van will stop by the layby outside 57-59 Sherwood Road, on a Monday and a Thursday from 9am to 10am.

The mobile service for Upper Wargrave will stop outside 111 Victoria Road, on a Wednesday and a Friday from 9am to 10am.

The Post Office is a private company which is owned by the government and hence the taxpayers.

In recent years it has closed about 1,000 branches across the country, and last year it listed, and in May 2015 it was warned that some 2,500 more branches were at risk of closure.