DUNBAR Post Office is to shut for nearly two weeks, leaving the town temporarily without a post office.

The building, on High Street, is going through a substantial modernisation and will shut its doors at the close of business on February 23.

The Post Office will then re-open on March 9, offering more services.

But Jacquie Bell, vice-chairwoman of the town’s community council, was concerned about the lack of facilities during the two-week period when it is shut.

She said in a letter to the Courier (see page 22): “Although the refurbishment of the post office is to be welcomed it is of concern that there will be no Post Office service in the town during that time. It seems that customers are expected to travel to East Linton or Haddington.

“Both of these options are served by infrequent and expensive public transport services.

“Concerns have been raised about this. It seems that requests by Post Office staff to run an interim service from another venue in the town or to let the mobile service from East Linton cover the gap have been refused.” Posters were put up in the Post Office on January 8 to advertise the refurbishment.

In the meantime, customers are advised to head to either Haddington or East Linton.

But Mrs Bell felt this was neglecting customers and said: “This gap will be of particular concern to those who need to collect regular benefit/pension payments in Dunbar, particularly those paid by card account.” The new Post Office will offer extended opening hours from 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Saturday, an extra five hours on the Saturday afternoon.

Similarly, there will be an increase in services available, including cash withdrawals from a Post Office Card Account, sending funds abroad using Moneygram, paying bills, buying holiday money, getting insurance, mortgages, savings and top-up mobile phones.

Councillor Michael Veitch remained hopeful a solution could be reached that would see a post office remaining the town while the branch was shut.

He said: “I very much welcome the Post Office being upgraded, it was certainly getting dated.

“It’s very well used and to expect people to travel to East Linton or Haddington is a bit much to ask for a lengthy period of time.

“They (Post Office) routinely use a mobile set-up for Innerwick and Stenton and the obvious solution would be a temporary facility.

“That could be in the Bleachingfield and I will follow this up with East Lothian Council.

“I understand the council would be quite happy but the decision is really up to the Post Office.” A Post Office spokesperson said: “We are modernising an average of eight Post Office branches every day and we do not provide a temporary replacement service as we aim to give advance notice to customers of the planned improvements; letters and posters have been displayed in Dunbar Post Office branch since January 8 advising customers of the dates of refurbishment.

“Two weeks is a standard length of time for a modernisation of this scale and we apologise to customers for any inconvenience during the wait.

“There is a reasonable bus service between Dunbar and the neighbouring branches in Haddington and East Linton. We were asked by the local authority to consider providing a mobile post office service but each of our mobile post offices has a specific route and a busy timetable to follow, so diverting it to Dunbar was not practical without inconveniencing customers in other rural areas.”