Will Santa deliver after Tuffley postbox was taken away?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/ ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



BOYS and girls on a Gloucester street are hoping Father Christmas will come tomorrow despite them being unable to post letters to him after their postbox was taken away.

Families on Fox Elms Road, Tuffley, were left astounded when their century-old postbox was removed by Royal Mail bosses, days before Christmas Day.

Mum Lorraine Campbell, who has lived on the street for 43 years, remembers being a six-year-old girl posting her letter to Father Christmas.

"The postbox served around 150 houses and was in a really handy location for many of the streets around here," said Lorraine. "So we couldn't believe it when they took it away completely.

"From a historical point of view, it's been here for more than 100 years and should remain. But also from a practical point of view, some of our older residents are going to have to walk much further when they had a perfectly good postbox on this street."

The box had stood in the grounds of what was once a post office. That later became a butcher's and recently converted into a house.

The owner requested the postbox be moved further down the road – but the Royal Mail took it away completely.

Now there's no chance of it ever coming back.

Adrian Booth, a spokesman for Royal Mail, said: "The postbox in Fox Elms Road was removed at the request of the owner of the property. When considering whether to re-site a postbox, we look at local postbox provision.

"In this case, the area is well served by postboxes, including one at Woods Orchard Close and another on St Barnabas roundabout, which are both a short distance away.

"As the box regularly contained only a handful of letters a week, we have no current plans to replace it."

Children’s ‘help us’ letter:

THE postbox at the end of our road has DISAPPEARED and now we have nowhere within safe walking distance to post our letters to you for Christmas! There used to be a butcher’s shop on the corner but the man has now made it into a house, so he asked Royal Mail to move the box to another place only a few yards away – but instead, they took the box away and say they won’t bring it back, because “not enough” people will miss it or complain.we DO miss it, Santa! All our mums and dads and grandparents are REALLY UPSET about it – especially as they weren’t TOLD it was going to happen! We are so sad that we cannot post our letters there any more. Of course we can’t actually POST this to you now, Santa, so we’ve asked the nice people at The Citizen to pass this on to you for us. We hope it reaches you, and that perhaps your elves and helpers can do something to get our postbox BACK! This would be the BEST Christmas present EVER!

With Thanks and warmest wishes,, hopefully,children of Fox Elms Road, Tuffley

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Adrian Booth, a spokesman for Royal Mail, said: "The postbox in Fox Elms Road was removed at the request of the owner of the property. When considering whether to re-site a postbox, we look at local postbox provision.

"In this case, the area is well served by postboxes, including one at Woods Orchard Close and another on St Barnabas roundabout, which are both a short distance away.

The one at the roundabout is 3/4 mile away and just off a very busy roundabout looking at Google Maps, and Woods Orchard close isn't even on the map.

I can understand the parents concerns to be honest. However, after privatisation it will only get worse.

[PhilthyPhil]

More like 0.5 miles to the one on the roundabout. There is also one 0.3 miles away on Forest View Road which is off Woods Orchard Road (not Close as the article says). This one is closer and off the main road. The decision doesn't seem unreasonable really, especially considering the original box was removed at the land owners request.

[TeeferTiger]

Doesn't Royal Mail only have to provide a postbox within a certain distance from every address and therefore anything nearer is just a bonus? Something like 10km?

[TeeferTiger]

"Access points
2.10 Royal Mail’s obligations in relation to access points are set out in its Licence, which essentially requires access point provision to reflect population distribution and meet the reasonable needs of users “having regard to the costs of providing and servicing such access points”. More specifically, Condition 3.2 of the Licence effectively requires Royal Mail to ensure that 99% of all users i.e. delivery point addresses, are within 500 metres of an ‘access point’ i.e. a post box or post office, in each postcode area where there is a population density which is greater than 200 delivery point addresses per km2. Under the existing statutory framework, Postcomm has no powers to stop Royal Mail closing and removing post boxes unless the provision of access points in a post code area falls below the level required by Condition 3.2.
2.11 For historical reasons and in the interests of customer service, Royal Mail provides many more access points than it would need to provide under this minimum requirement. There are fewer access points in sparsely populated areas of the country, where the requirement is that in each postcode area the premises of not less than 95% of users of postal services are within 10 kilometres of an access point capable of receiving the largest postal packets i.e. a post office where mail will be collected. In the unlikely event that Royal Mail changed its current attitude to customer service and began to remove large numbers of post boxes, Postcomm might wish to consider whether a modification should be proposed to the Licence in accordance with the provisions of the Act, to prevent such action."

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/post/1400.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;