Pledge over mail services - Malmesbury

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EFFORTS to convince the Royal Mail not to scrap a delivery office in Malmesbury appear to have failed.

The company announced earlier this year that the High Street sorting office would close and posties would have to drive to Wootton Bassett to collect mail destined for Malmesbury residents.

Despite a bid by councillors and businesses to keep a location in the town, Royal Mail’s senior external relations manager Richard Hall said it would not be possible.

In a letter to Wiltshire councillor Simon Killane and deputy town clerk Phil Rice, he said: “There is an urgent need to improve the efficiency of our operation and one way of doing this is to optimise the spare capacity we have in other units.

“We have sufficient capacity at Wootton Bassett to accommodate the Malmesbury operation and it makes most commercial sense to concentrate our operation there.

“To replace the existing unit at Malmesbury with an alternative site, even if on a smaller scale, would add additional unnecessary costs.”

Despite the extra ten-mile drive to Wootton Bassett, Mr Hall said delivery times would not suffer.

He said: “We do not expect there will be a significant impact on our operation in Malmesbury. Delivery and collection times will remain within our specifications.

“It is our intention to provide a facility in Malmesbury to enable customers to collect items we have previously attempted to deliver and left a card. Our preference is to use existing facilities operated by the Post Office.”