Royal Mail has ‘upgraded’ 3,500 of the beloved landmarks – but critics claim they now resemble recycling bins.
“How does it work, then?” asks a middle-aged man peering suspiciously at the refurbished postbox in the centre of my Essex village. Our 1950s-style red cast-iron box is one of 3,500 that have recently been “upgraded” to become a “postbox of the future”, as Royal Mail struggles to compete with the parcel services offered by companies such as Evri and InPost (whose massive locker units have already made most of our local shops feel like school changing rooms).
The man scowls at the postbox’s instructions, which inform him the chute will remain locked unless he has first downloaded the Royal Mail app to pay for postage, printed a QR-coded label for a small package and pressed the button to activate the scanner. He taps the tilted plastic lid, where a solar panel provides the power for the service. “Won’t be bothering,” he delivers a swift verdict. “I don’t own a printer, and it looks like a lot of faff when the Post Office is just over there!”
SOLAR PANELS Pillar box lids have been replaced to provide power for label scanners
Great Baddow’s Post Office is, indeed, less than a minute’s walk from the new postbox. Queues there had been longer than usual when the postbox was shrouded in a black bag during its high-tech surgery. But now, its robot mouth is ready to receive parcels.
I wondered if Post Office staff were worried the future box was part of a long-term plan to replace them. But when I popped in to ask, they just laughed.
“We were a bit worried people might stop coming in here when we first heard the plans,” they shrug. “But nobody has been using it so far as we can tell. It seems like a waste of money. A few people have asked us how it works and decided not to bother. You can only use it for small parcels [under 2kg] anyway, and people think it’s ugly.”
My neighbours are not alone in recoiling at the appearance of the new boxes. Dinah Johnson, founder of The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society, is up in arms against “the diabolical butchering of these beloved British icons”.
Postboxes are a French invention – the first was installed in Paris in 1653. The oldest British box (black and wall-mounted) appeared in Wakefield in 1809, but the first red pillar box was introduced in Guernsey in 1852. Mainland UK boxes remained a more tasteful green for another 20 to 30 years before being repainted an eye-catching scarlet.
By 1879, the ornate, hexagonal Penfold boxes commissioned in 1866 had mostly been replaced by more cost-efficient cylinders. The design most of us use today was finalised in 1974.
This dramatic revamp of postboxes began in August last year after a pilot study. The overall cost has not been disclosed, and only boxes from Elizabeth II’s era are being converted – older heritage postboxes are protected.
“Every heritage British film or TV drama features a traditional postbox,” says Johnson. “You can have a lot of fun spotting them once you start playing that game. It’s awful, the way they’ve mutilated these icons, chopping into them and putting these cheap plastic lids on them. They look like recycling bins.
“I hear some of them are already breaking. And they don’t seem secure to me. Once you’ve put
your package into the tray and closed the chute, you can open it again to see if it has dropped down, so – in theory – the next person who opens the parcel tray could remove your parcel… I am not against all new technology. This just seems like an attempt to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Johnson notes that while remote rural postboxes might benefit from the addition of a small parcel option, many of the upgraded boxes – including the one in my village – are right beside Post Offices. “It makes me wonder if Royal Mail is in cahoots with the Government to run down the Post Office. Is it a co-ordinated attack after the Horizon scandal – to make us all go digital?”
Royal Mail was split from the Post Office by New Labour, and it became a public limited company in 2001. In 2022, the holding company for Royal Mail, Parcelforce and GLS (the group’s European parcel service), changed its name to International Distributions Services (IDS). At the end of 2024, IDS was bought for £3.6bn by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s EP Group, marking the first time the 508-year-old postal service came under foreign ownership.
“I’ve written to Mr Kretinsky,” says Johnson. She thinks he – and Royal Mail – should leave the parcels to the Post Office and other delivery services, and focus on their traditional USP. “They need to advertise to customers and remind them why letter-writing still matters,” she argues vehemently.
At a time when younger generations are discovering the personal, tactile joys of vinyl records, board games and crafts, the handwritten letter is poised for a comeback, she believes.
“A stamp for 87p is quite good value, I think, when you consider how much pleasure a letter can bring to the person who writes it and the person who receives it,” Johnson says. “People think nothing of spending over £1 on a chocolate bar as a treat, £3-£4 for a new game app on their phones or to rent a film from Amazon.”
She notes that the solar panels on the new boxes also prevent “yarnbombers” from decorating postboxes with their delightful knitted and crocheted creations.
Postbox “bonnets” first began appearing around the UK in 2012, and the trend took off during the pandemic.
Gaynor White from Wokingham says she’s been making toppers for 13 years now. “We have brought a lot of joy and raised over £70,000 for charities – including the Royal British Legion with our Remembrance-themed toppers,” she says.
White is also concerned about changes to the traditional boxes. “We have a lovely postbox here in Barkham, with a beautiful 1930s metal sign on the top reading, ‘To The Post Office,’” she explains. “Last year, Raj in the Post Office told me the sign was going to be removed to make space for a solar panel. He said it was really sad, people would really miss my toppers.”
White asked him if he had challenged Royal Mail and, on learning that he hadn’t, suggested he try pushing back. It worked. “When he asked them not to change the box, they relented. They’re not doing it. So it is worth objecting,” she says.
Another “yarnbomber”, who goes by the name of Syston Knitting Banxy, had less success with her campaign to keep the box in her Leicestershire village.
“Admirers of my work – which has featured on Coronation Street – were so saddened by the news that we’d be getting a solar panel on our box that they started a petition, asking the Royal Mail to reconsider. They collected over 1,300 signatures,” she says. “But it made no difference, even with our local MP’s involvement. So residents set up a GoFundMe page and have raised £3,500 to buy a reconditioned postbox just for my knitting. We have one on order now.” Other “yarnbombers” are more sanguine. Linda Catling, 80, from Essex, says: “Royal Mail are doing the right thing to keep their business going. We can put our creations on bollards, walls and things.”
A spokesman from The Barlick Yarn Fairies, based in Lancashire, says she felt a real sadness when she saw the postbox at Bolton Abbey “wrapped up in a plastic bag” ready for its adaptation. “I found out from the Post Office staff that each door is unique to the postbox, so it has to be removed and sent away for five to six weeks for the newfangled panels to be fitted,” she says.
“One of the duty managers told me there was nothing they could do to stop things. It’s such a picturesque village, and we were all a bit upset. People felt the box would be naked without one of our toppers. So I went out after dark and took measurements of the new tilted lid and the placement of the solar panel. We’re now crafting around them.”
Back in Great Baddow, 75-yearold Alison McColl tuts at our new box. “I had absolutely no idea they were doing this. I suppose the parcel slot might be handy for people who can’t get to the Post Office during opening hours. Can you still post normal letters in it?”
She’s relieved to hear she can. Nobody else I speak to is planning on using it for parcels, and the postman emptying the box doesn’t think he’s collected many from it. “Making people print their own labels is a real flaw in the system,” says 27-year-old local, Nick Walshe. “If I’m using Evri or InPost, I can just scan the QR code from my phone. As ever, Royal Mail has overcomplicated things.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said, “Our postboxes of the future offer another convenient way for customers to access Royal Mail’s services, alongside home delivery and collection, our customer service points, Post Office branches, lockers and Royal Mail shops. We’re pleased to see positive feedback from customers in areas where the new postboxes have already been introduced.
“We appreciate the passion and care that goes into the crocheting, knitting and decorating of toppers. With 115,000 postboxes across the UK, there are plenty that remain unaltered, and that will remain the case in the future.”
‘Admirers of my work were so sad that we were getting a solar panel they started a petition’