POST offices in the heart of Hounslow and Isleworth have been threatened with closure in a move residents fear will 'rip the heart out of the community'.
Three branches in Hounslow, Isleworth and Chiswick could shut by June as the Government attempts to stem the huge losses the service is making nationally.
Customers have just six weeks to save the stores by taking part in a London-wide consultation launched on Tuesday.
The Old Isleworth branch in South Street, the Park Avenue branch in Whitton Road, Hounslow, and the Chiswick High Road branch are all part of small shopping parades providing a vital service for older people.
Clare Henderson Roe, a 46-year-old nurse who lives a few doors away from the Whitton Road Post Office, said: "There's a large elderly population who rely on the branch for their pensions and getting rid of it will rip the heart out of the local community."
Shopkeepers feared it could prove the final nail in the coffin for them after the recent closure of the South Western pub.
In Old Isleworth, deputy sub-postmaster Talat Raja claimed elderly customers were shocked by the plans.
Lee Arnold, who lives down the road from the store, said people would have no option but to drive to branches in St Margarets or Isleworth.
Mike Derham, chairman of the Isleworth Society, claimed the move would erode Old Isleworth's 'village atmosphere'.
The proposed closures are part of plans to shut one in five of London's 850 post offices.
Ministers want to close up to 2,500 branches across the country in response to falling customer numbers and weekly losses of £4million.
However, there was good news for people living in the west of the borough, which was one of the few parts of London to escape the cuts.
Brentford & Isleworth MP Ann Keen and Hounslow's London Assemblyman Tony Arbour both promised to fight the closures, which Mr Arbour claimed would cause shopping parades to 'wither and die'.
