A Nice New Post Office - but a poor future for mail collection and delivery.

This is the new Post Office that will be opening in Fryern Arcade, Chandler's Ford a week today - on Friday 29th August - in a new branch of WH Smith, which is replacing the old bookshop and the dry cleaners. That sounds good, but what about the future of mail collection and delivery?

BUT THERE WILL BE NO POST OFFICE COUNTER SERVICE IN CHANDLER'S FORD ON THE MORNING OF FRIDAY 29th AUGUST. The new post office will open at 1pm having closed at the usual time of 5.30pm in the current location.

Many Chandler's Ford residents will remember when the post office was located in the building now occupied by the beauticians opposite the Co-op in Winchester Road.  At that time, of course, there was also a post office in Bournemouth Road. The Fryern post office was then located in Circle K/Sperrings at the top of Oakmount Road before moving to Fryern Arcade. And at that time the Bournemouth Road branch was closed.

WH Smith have incorporated many post office branches into their stores, so we should be grateful both that they are opening one of their branches in Fryern Arcade, and also that they are enabling the post office to continue to provide a counter service when they are reducing their mail collection and delivery.

The letter box at the top of Bodycoats Road now shows the following:

So the recently privatised Royal Mail could be collecting mail just once a day and as early as just after 9am! Thus next day delivery for most people will be a thing of the past.  And a new notice at the post office in Chandler's Ford says:

It used to be collected at 5.30pm. Now it is 20 minutes earlier.

Royal Mail have announced that these changes are taking place as a part of restructuring, to replace the collections currently being made after 4pm.  They now say that boxes will be emptied between 9am and 3pm to enable postmen to empty them as part of their daily rounds.

But the postmen are already very overstretched, our mail being delivered by a different postman virtually every day and any time between 9am and 4pm.  There is no consistency and we  get mail for several of our neighbours - bundled together, that is - pushed through our letter-box, presumably because the postman is too busy to deliver it himself.

And this happens nearly all the time.

This post contained confidential letters which, if opened by a criminal, could have been used for identity fraud.  I have complained to the post office and to individual postmen, some of whom hardly speak any English.  On of them just laughed at me and others said: "I'll see that mail is delivered correctly to you," but had no intention of doing so to our neighbours.  Royal Mail has a contractual obligation to deliver mail to the addressee and not leave it accessible to anyone else. 

The problem with  Royal Mail has been caused by the European Union who made the government open up all mail delivery to competition.  Other companies creamed off the most profitable parts, leaving Royal Mail to deliver to the door, both urban and rural.  The amount of mail sent has been falling fairly consistently due to e-mails, so it is more and more difficult for Royal Mail to make a profit.  the last straw was when the Coalition ill-advisedly privatised them.  

There is currently a legal requirement for Royal Mail to have post boxes within half a mile of 98% of homes, but they could still close tens of thousands of them.  And if they still can't make a profit it is inevitable that this law will be changed, so I can see the day not too far distant when the only way to send and receive mail will be to take it and collect to or from a branch of WH Smith.