FARNHAM post office is one of as many as 40 branches nationwide which could close and relocate to a WHSmith store next year under a new agreement.

Planned relocations are said to support the long-term sustainability of Post Office branches and will bring longer opening hours, including Sundays, in many areas.

WHSmith currently runs 135 post offices within their high street stores throughout the country, a number which is set to top 200.

The post office relocation will be subject to a six-week public consultation, details of which have yet to be announced.

Kenneth Wickenden has been using the “very successful” Farnham branch for the past 30 years, mainly picking up packages but also sending parcels and buying currency.

The 75-year-old said: “It’s a slippery slope. It looks as though it’s going to be totally withdrawn because WHSmith makes it more difficult to get the items you want, and are they going to staff it particularly well?

“We’ve got one locally in Rowledge but obviously it only has certain functions. I may well be forced to use my local post office more, but once again that’s in a commercial premises and it depends on staff being available.

“You can get queues of a dozen people because they haven’t got enough staff to cope with it.”

Another customer, who has used Farnham post office since 2003, is 51-year-old Justine. She believes the closure is “very bad news”.

“It’s closing down yet another useful facility in what is a very busy town, so it’s very bad news,"she said.

"You can tell by the queues and the amount of people in there that it’s used all the time. There are regularly people queuing outside in the morning and so it’s going to be chaos in WHSmith."

And she added: “I work in London quite a bit, so I tend to save my parcels and things to do them here but I’ll just take them into London and not bother in Farnham, which is probably what they want.

“It’s a recurring theme. We lose things that are useful in the centre of what is a busy town with loads more houses being built, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

A new customer at the Farnham branch is 59-year-old Tony Ghataore. He told the Herald that the relocation to WHSmith would “definitely” impact the way he uses the service as he does “everything” there.

He added that “it’s not right” and was “against” it moving inside a commercial store.

“I’ve just moved to Farnham so it would be a disaster for me if the post office moved from here. They’re brilliant. They help me out and it’s very near to my house,” Mr Ghataore continued.

“Where I moved from I used the post office quite a lot. I think they’re handy and it’s a shame they’re closing down, it’s not the right thing.”

A source told the Herald that staff in Farnham’s post office don’t wish to relocate to WHSmith, which is situated in The Borough.

Post Office network and sales director Roger Gale said: “WHSmith and Post Office have worked together successfully for more than a decade and our collaboration helps to secure our services on high streets for years to come.

“We’re continuing to respond to unprecedented change on high streets and in consumer trends.

“By adapting to the needs of customers we’re making sure post offices will matter as much tomorrow as they do today, with services available when and where people want them, in convenient locations and open for longer hours, including Sundays.

“We’ve made significant changes in our network of 11,500 post offices over the past few years, modernising more than 7,500 branches and increasing opening hours for customers by more than 200,000 a week.

“It makes sense to further expand this successful, sustainable way of providing Post Office services to customers.”

A WHSmith spokeman was “unable to comment any further at this stage as the transfer is subject to public consultation”.