Postmen may soon pick up letters and parcels when delivering items to farms and isolated homes in remote parts of Wales, Antoinette Sandbach AM has been told.
The plans have been revealed in a letter to the North Wales Assembly Member by Jacky Akass, on behalf of Royal Mail Chief Executive Moya Green.
Ms Sandbach is seeking to ensure that rural parts of North Wales are not left without letter boxes when village post offices shut, or services move into larger shops.
She said:
“The Post Office is seeking to transform 6,000 of its branches, under the UK Coalition Government’s £1.34bn modernisation project.
“However, I want to be satisfied that these changes ensure the resulting altered post office will be open for longer hours and offer a wider range of services – plus it doesn’t lose a vital service for the community, such as banking or a post box.
“Each time the Post Office writes to say a branch is moving, I write back asking how far it is to the nearest Royal Mail post box – on foot, rather than in a direct line drawn on the map.
“Ofcom rules say 85% of the population should not be more than half a mile from the nearest post box. As a North Wales AM, I want to know that my constituents are not left at a disadvantage, simply because they don’t live in the middle of a built-up area.”
Ms Akass, who is based at Royal mail’s London HQ, writes in her letter to Antoinette:
“Our obligation regarding postboxes is that 98% of addresses nationally will be within half a mile. For the remaining 2% of delivery points, we must provide sufficient access points or other means of access to the universal service from very remote or isolated locations such as farmhouses to meet the very reasonable needs of users.
“For our customers in deep rural areas we would consider collecting whilst on delivery. We remain committed to providing a high level of delivery and collections services to our rural services.”
