More than 1,000 residents and traders have already backed a campaign to save a Dudley post office from closure.

It is feared that the loss of Quarry Bank’s busy office, the only outlet for banking in the town, would drive businesses out of the area and force residents to make long trips elsewhere.

People are also furious that nearby Brierley Hill will have two main post offices in close proximity despite having a much smaller population. Campaigners have been inundated with letters and questionnaires calling for the office, in Quarry Bank High Street, to remain open. Stourbridge MP Lynda Waltho has also pledged her support to the fight to save the branch, saying she is “furious” at the closure plans.

Secretary of Friends of the Library and Community Services in Quarry Bank Donna Evans-Hadley, aged 35, said: “We have had a very good response so far from people writing letters and filling in questionnaires.

“We want to get as many people as possible to write to the Post Office bosses and hopefully we can have a good go at saving it. If people have to travel to Brierley Hill to use the post office they are going to do their shopping there as well and trade in the High Street is going to suffer even more.”

Traders have already campaigned about the loss of the Dudley Council estate office and planned closure of the town’s library.

More than 1,000 people signed a petition in a bid to get the new “library link” service – a skeleton library, which will replace the full service, installed in the post office.

Across the borough nine branches are under threat. There are 56 branches facing the chop in the West Midlands, Worcestershire and Herefordshire as well as more than 16 in Shropshire.

The post offices under threat in Dudley are in Barnett Lane, Kingswinford, Silver End in Brettell Lane, Quarry Bank in High Street and Station Road in Brockmoor. The axe is also looming for branches in Pedmore in Hagley Road, Oldswinford in Hagley and the office based at Clent Parish Hall in Church Avenue, Clent. Services could also be lost under plans to close branches in Long Lane, Halesowen and Hasbury.