Collections at some rural post boxes were cut back in April

Bob Barton, from Llanarmon-yn-Ial near Ruthin, said it meant a "third class service" for some.

Mail collections from 600 north Wales' post boxes have been cut back to one a day since April.

Royal Mail says only a handful of boxes - where mail volumes are "extremely low" - have an 0900 BST collection.

But Councillor Barton, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Denbighshire Council, said it was the thin end of the wedge.

"They claim it's improving efficiency but it's not," said Coun Barton.

"The route from our village to the sorting office at Mold takes in three post boxes where collections are now at nine o'clock, but at other post boxes they're still collecting at around half past four in the afternoon, so the postman still has to come out the area twice. It just doesn't make sense."

Mr Barton was raising the issue at Monday's Llandegla parish council meeting. He is also urging other councils to protest to the postal watchdog Postcomm.

He said he was also hoping to carry out a national survey of collection times in rural areas before sending his findings to MPs and AMs.

Low usage

A spokesman for the Royal Mail said it had made "commercial and economic" sense to reduce twice daily collections to single daily collections at 600 of the 1,300 rural post boxes in the region, where only one or two items of mail are posted a day.

Mr Johnston said a later collection time could not be justified at the post box referred to by Coun Barton because of the very low usage the box attracts.