Northumberland County Council has agreed to work with district councils to help ensure that residents' concerns about the potential closures are clearly voiced to officials at Post Office Ltd.

Councillors are concerned that some communities could be destroyed by the closures of the offices, where in some cases they support the only shop in the village.

Several post offices in both urban and rural areas are under threat of closure, with a six-week consultation exercise taking place.

Labour group leader Coun Grant Davey said the party had been discussing how best to resolve the issue in Wansbeck and Blyth.

He said: "One good thing about this authority, and its movement forward into a new authority, is this is an excellent authority.

"It has the power to trade. We should take over the post office counters.

"They can put them in our one-stop shops, our libraries, our schools and draw people in.

"We're good at delivering services in the districts and we're going to transfer that in April.

"We have got to have a full debate on how we can run post officers and support the people of our county."