I am dismayed to see yet more retrenchment proposed at post offices ("Warning post offices at risk in franchise revamp", The Herald, February 7).

They are already hard to find and sometimes, as D S Blackwood (Letters, February 9) writes: "The only thing you can guarantee in a post office is that there will be a queue."

It would be better for us all if the Government and its agencies would use the Post Office and Royal Mail more. Yet again this year we had to find another way to pay our TV licence because that strand of business has been removed from post offices.

Queues are bad enough, but queues with compulsory piped music are a misery to many people. Some of the alternative retailers mentioned for these new franchises play such constant music.

Fortunately, in many cases, shoppers are able to go elsewhere. The Post Office should choose any alternative retail outlets well so as not to drive even more business away.

R J Ardern,

26A Southside Road,

Inverness.