Concerns have been raised about the future of the only remaining post office in central Putney after Wandsworth Council received an application to redevelop the site.

The leaseholder of 214 Upper Richmond Road, wants to demolish the current building and replace it with a five-storey building with a shop and 14 flats.

If the scheme goes ahead, the Post Office, which is the freeholder and currently occupies the ground floor, may have to close while the redevelopment takes place.

Deputy leader of Wandsworth Council, Councillor Maurice Heaster, has written to Post Office managing director Alan Cook, asking the Post Office to clarify its long-term plans.

Mr Cook confirmed services would continue to be provided in the town centre, but Coun Heaster said, any move “could be an opportunity to provide Putney with the kind of modern facility that it has lacked for years”.

He said: “Either this can be provided in new accommodation at the existing site or in another town centre location. What we don’t want is for such an important service to be shoe-horned into a temporary home only to find that is stuck there without any prospect of securing better accommodation in the future.”

Putney MP Justine Greening has also asked for clarification of the plans, adding she had doubts over whether the Post Office could stay open during redevelopment.

She said: “There will be a period of time when the site is simply a building site and I am deeply concerned that we will have no local post office at all at that point.

“To lose Putney Post Office for even a short time would be totally unacceptable and extremely frustrating given our local community's vociferous concerns raised about scaling back our network even to what we have now.”