Medway - Mail hub to deliver 'real boost' to area

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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DEVELOPERS have started work on a new "super" sorting office expected to open in Medway early next year.

Last September Royal Mail announced plans to replace sorting offices in Maidstone, Tonbridge, Dartford and Canterbury with a centralised unit to process all of Kent's mail in Norman Close, Strood.

MP for Rochester and Strood Mark Reckless and Mayor of Medway David Brake joined Royal Mail staff for the ground-breaking ceremony on Monday last week.

The Medway Mail Centre, as it will be known, will see 700 jobs moved to Strood, and Mr Reckless is confident the town will benefit.


He said: "This is an exciting project which could provide a real boost to the local economy and 700 Strood-based jobs.

"In the near-term the Royal Mail is providing generous assistance to workers currently based at other locations, including season tickets for travel to Strood.

"Over time, though, the centre will recruit large numbers of local people."

Mr Reckless said it was a significant step forward in the wider regeneration of Strood.

Royal Mail has invested £70 million in modernising its Kent operation.

The new sorting office will have state-of-the-art sorting machines, more handheld tracking devices and delivery equipment better suited to parcels and packets, which now make up a larger share of deliveries.

Royal Mail also hopes the centre will save energy and cut vehicle mileage by about 600,000 miles a year.

Royal Mail regional operations director Tom Willis said: "We are extremely excited by the official start of the work on the new Medway Mail Centre.

"It shows that we – as a business – are investing in Kent and this will benefit both customers and staff alike."

But the arrival of the new sorting centre has come as bad news for Kent's Royal Mail workforce, with 400 posts to be cut by the time workers from Kent's closing offices move to Strood in January 2012.

Medway's Royal Mail workers remain wary, despite assurances from the company that compulsory redundancies will be avoided.

Dave Banbury, secretary of the Kent Invicta branch of the Communication Workers Union, which represents many mail workers, said: "We are currently going through the same sort of issues in London, where we believe 1,000 people will be made redundant."

At present Royal Mail employs about 3,700 workers throughout the county.

[Mark_Law22]

£70 million!! Jesus, and they're supposed to be losing money??