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People living in poor communities on the outskirts of cities have borne the main brunt of post office closures in recent years, new research has claimed.

According to the National Consumer Council (NCC), the UK's rural areas were "largely protected" from post office closures between 2002 and 2006 on social grounds.

But it says that deprived urban areas with a heavy dependence on post office services were particularly badly hit by closures.

The warning comes after the government announced plans in May to close another 2,500 post offices, claiming that the move was necessary in order to place the network on a sound financial footing.

At the time then trade and industry secretary Alistair Darling, now chancellor of the exchequer, told the House of Commons that reform was necessary given that the post office network was losing almost £4 million a week.

But ahead of the planned closures, the NCC is warning that the needs of those who rely most on post office services must be taken into account to ensure that they do not suffer further in the wake of past branch closures.

A study conducted for the organisation found that people living on large housing estates on the outskirts of smaller cities, such as Cardiff, Nottingham and Leeds, were "hard- hit" by post office closures that occurred between 2002 and 2006.

It said that residents in such neighbourhoods tend to be young, on low incomes and are often unemployed. Many people living in such areas were also found to be lone parents, few of whom had access to a car.

Researchers found that people in such areas were "heavily reliant" on their local post office branch because of a high dependency on state benefits and a lack of access to a bank account and mainstream credit.

The NCC is now pressing the Post Office to take into account measures of social need when determining which branches should close as part of its latest restructuring programme. At present criteria outlined by the government only states that 95 per cent of the UK's total urban population must have access to a post office branch within one mile of where they live.

NCC also wants the Post Office to adopt a "sensitive and responsive" consultation process, after warning that individuals living in deprived areas, such as single mums and elderly people, are often "less well-equipped" to make a case against planned local branch closures.

Commenting, NCC spokeswoman Nicola O'Reilly said: "People are as important as places in these decisions.

"It's vital that plans for the next 2,500 closures protect the people who would be hardest hit," she added.

A spokesman for the Post Office said: "The government's post office closure programme is designed to ensure that as many people as possible are as near as possible to a branch and the Post Office will be doing all it can to ensure the most accessible network within the criteria laid down by the government."