THE High Sheriff of Somerset is getting behind a campaign against a move which could be the final straw for post offices in rural West Somerset.

The government has put DVLA services, including car tax renewals, out to tender as its current contract with the Post Office is coming to an end.

Brian and Caroline Tyner, who have run the Williton branch for six years, fear it could cause irreparable damage to their business if another company wins the contract.

In just a few days, almost 2,000 of their customers have signed a petition as part of a campaign run by the National Federation of SubPostmasters to urge the government to continue working with the Post Office.

Brian said: “This number of signatures shows how extremely well-supported we are. Everyone has given us their backing.

“Ian Liddell-Grainger MP promised to take the issue to parliament if we received 1,000 signatures in two weeks;  we have surpassed that figure in less than half the time.

“We only found out about this on July 26, we had no warning at all. DVLA services account for 20% of our income on average – we can deal with 350 to 700 car tax requests in a month.

“It would really damage our business – thousands of post offices are bankrupt already and if the Government does this, the rest of us could go the same way. We could end up losing half of the branches in the network – it’s ludicrous.

“We are very grateful to everyone who has supported us so far and would urge anyone who hasn’t signed the petition to come along and do so.”

Sylvana Chandler, High Sheriff of Somerset and Williton resident, said: ““I am very worried about this but I think everyone is behind the campaign.

“The DVLA bit is an enormous amount of these country post offices’ income and it’s difficult to see how they are all going to keep going without it.

“The Post Office is the vital link for so many people in a rural community. We must keep our fingers crossed.”

For more details on the campaign see www.nfsp.org.uk/DVLA_campaign.asp