St Annes Road post office in South Shore opened at 9am and was due to shut its doors for the last time at 12.30pm.

Lee Cropper, who has been the post master for 14 years, said: "The customers are disappointed and I'm redundant and looking for a job."

Layton's Torsway Avenue post office, hailed as a vital service for Blackpool's Victoria Hospital, will close tomorrow. Both received thousands of messages of support in The Gazette's Stand up for Post Offices campaign.

But by the middle of next month all 11 offices will have closed.

Today's closure comes after massive fight by The Gazette to save the coast's doomed offices - shut as part of a controversial cost-cutting exercise by Post Office Ltd, which claims it is losing £4m a week nationally.

More 9,000 readers signed petitions and pledged support. Lytham's Warton Street office was saved after the public backlash.

It was the only branch out of 58 selected for closure across Lancashire to win a reprieve after a six-week consultation period.

That consultation was blasted as a "sham" by MPs, postmasters and customers who said the closures will leave them without a vital community resource.

Blackpool Council had attempted to save Torsway Avenue by placing council services within the branch.

But the authority pulled out of talks with Post Office bosses after they refused to keep the branch open past tomorrow.

The council said without the branch staying open the business would no longer be viable.

Council leader Peter Callow is now calling for an inquiry amid claims Post Office chiefs have wasted taxpayers money.

He said the whole negotiation process had been "a sham and charade" and Post Office bosses were "not genuine in their intentions".

The closure of the 11 branches will continue over the next month. The last to close will be Fleetwood, Cleveleys and Poulton on May 12.