A similar mobile post office serves parts of Devon and Cornwall

In Cumbria, a big green van travels some 500 miles a week, offering a mobile post office service to about 400 customers living in 36 isolated communities.

It is one of only two mobile post office services currently in existence in the UK and is part of an intitiative by the Post Office to reach customers who live more than a mile from their nearest branch.

The ongoing post office closures around the country are causing problems for many people, particularly pensioners and families who collect state benefits.

The mobile van is able to offer everything you would expect from a normal village post office.

Inside, there are two security-protected Post Office serving counters. Customers can also withdraw cash directly from the van without charge.

And thanks to a new agreement with British Telecom, every village the van travels to has a plug-in point which allows it to link up with the banking network.

Community spirit

Karen Bragg enjoys the social aspect of the mobile service

Most of the people who visit the mobile post office every week are pensioners and Post Office employee Karen Bragg knows them all by name.

"I really enjoy going around all the villages because the people become like family to me... we're part of the community," she says.

And the residents seem only too pleased that the service exists. One resident, Margaret Nixon, described it as a "lifeline".

In one village, tea and cakes are even provided for Karen and her colleague as they pass through.

Ways and means

The main drawback of the mobile service is that it must stick to a rigid timetable; the price it pays for visiting as many as 36 communities distributed over such a large area.

Round the country we're doing lots of innovative things to find ways to put post offices into new locations Graham Halliday, Post Office Director

The van stops at each place once a week, sometimes for as little as 20 minutes.

Such limitations are, of course, financial as well as logistical.

"Rural services cost money to run," says Post Office Director, Graham Halliday. "The government is providing us with about �150m a year to enable us to keep rural services maintained."

Mr Halliday, however, is confident that the Post Office will continue to forge ahead with plans to serve the more isolated communities in the UK.

"Round the country we're doing lots of innovative things to find ways to put post offices into new locations like pubs, churches and village halls," he says.

Funding for these services is secured until 2008.

What happens after that will be for future governments to decide.

BBC Radio 4's Money Box was broadcast on Saturday, 9 April, 2005 at 1202 BST.