Liverpool postmark dies as sorting office shuts down

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The Liverpool postmark will disappear from envelopes after Royal Mail closed the city's last remaining sorting office.

The Copperas Street depot, which has been operating since 1977, franked Liverpool's mail for the final time on Saturday.

Now a Warrington label will be stamped on the city's posted letters, bringing the death of the country's oldest postmark outside London.

Around 600 employees will move to the new centre, although some have opted for redundancy.

The planned closure sparked outrage across Liverpool in August as angry union members branded the decision to kill off the postmark a "nail in the city's coffin".

Speaking earlier this year, Mark Walsh, regional branch secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) had hoped the mail organisation could agree to stamp the Liverpool postmark from the Warrington office.

But Royal Mail responded by dismissing any nostalgia about the postmark branding it an “operational tool” to show where a letter was processed.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “We have been transferring processing work from Liverpool Mail Centre on Copperas Hill to our new mail centre in Warrington on a phased basis over the past few months and the final work is due to move on Sunday.”