Mail for troops will get through

[Geezer]

http://www.meltontimes.co.uk/news/Mail- ... 5786367.jp

Published Date: 02 November 2009

MONDAY:

Armed Forces families are being reassured post to their loved ones on operation will not be affected by the strike at Royal Mail.
Concerned mum Myra Sutherland, of Burton Lazars, has been sending regular parcels to her son, Petty Officer Leslie Sutherland, an air engineer technician with the Royal Navy Air Squadron 857, who is stationed at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

But she was worried her packs of essentials, including shower gel and deodorant as well as treats, were getting stuck in the back-log caused by the industrial action being taken by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and contacted the Melton Times looking for help.

She said: "The servicemen and women work long shifts in extreme conditions. Many of them look forward to receiving these parcels and coming home.

"Our only form of contact is through letters, parcels and internet phone calls which is very intermittent."

PO Sutherland, who has a 10-year-old son Ross with wife Lisa, repairs helicopters and gets a regular morale boost from parcels and family contact.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed the backlog in the Royal Mail will not affect post to the troops in Afghanistan or other overseas addresses.

A spokesman said: "As a result of the very close and supportive working relationship between British Forces Post Office and the Royal Mail Group, a procedure has been implemented whereby BFPO customers will be able to continue to send mail items to BFPO overseas addresses.

"This mail must be delivered by the customer to the Post Office and handed over to the counter staff, identifying it as BFPO mail, and not placed in a post box, even if the post box is at the Post Office."

Parcels up to 2kg can be sent free of charge through the British Forces Post Office to named service personnel.

Further details are available at http://www.bfpo.mod.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The full article contains 326 words and appears in n/a newspaper.

[westlondonpostie]

I think that this has already been brought to Royal Mails attention, the suggestion was that as this mail is regarded as Urgent by most postal workers it should be kept seperate in the Post Office Branches and dispatched directly to BFPO once Identified as BFPO mail when it gets to the Mail Centres, but sadly RM is dragging it's heels on this as it is getting the CWU a lot of bad press

[POSTMAN]

Spoke to a parcelforce driver today and he reckons he picks up the BFPO stuff when we are on strike.
Any collection drivers on?