Apology over postbox closures in Leicester streets

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Royal Mail has apologised to thousands of customers for sealing up 12 postboxes after the keys to open them went missing.

The postboxes, in the West End of Leicester, have been out of action since Tuesday, the day after a bunch of collection keys was lost.

The company said it would be re-opening the boxes over the next few days once the locks had been changed.

It confirmed that before sealing the boxes, the post inside had been taken out using another set of keys.

However, while the original keys are missing, the boxes have to remained sealed.

Melissa Laurence, who lives off Hinckley Road, tried to use the postbox on the corner of Wynfield Drive and Clarefield Drive on Tuesday afternoon but found it out of use.

She said: "I did my usual five- minute dash to the post box with some urgent letters and there was a metal shutter across the front of it.

"So I ran round to the next box outside the post office to find that one was sealed off too.

"In the end I managed to catch the postmaster at the post office in Hinckley Road who had a bulging sack of mail."

When the postbox close to Subhash and Rama Varambhia's shop in Fosse Road South was sealed up, the couple offered to post letters at a nearby box for several elderly customers – but found that one closed off too.

"We said, 'don't worry, we'll post them in the box outside Western Park when we take our son to the bus stop," said Mrs Varambhia.

"But we couldn't post anything in that box either.

"If it was one or two boxes it wouldn't be so bad, but this is a large area we are talking about and it's been three days, which is quite a long time."

Hemandra Hindocha, sub-postmaster at Westcotes Post Office, in Hinckley Road, said staff had been taking up to 50 calls a day from confused customers. He said: "Customers have been coming in asking, 'what's going on?' and some were wondering if they had been sealed up because of some kind of industrial action.

"Obviously I realise they have to change the locks because the keys could have fallen into the wrong hands, but it would have helped if Royal Mail had let us in the post office know what was going on and if they had put a note on the boxes telling customers what happened."

Nick Martens, of Royal Mail, said: "A set of collection keys was mislaid in the LE3 area of Leicester on Monday.

"This has affected 12 post-boxes which were subsequently sealed.

"We will be re-opening the boxes in the next few days once we have changed the locks.

"Royal Mail apologises to any customers who have been inconvenienced."

[PhilthyPhil]

They never do this in my office when keys go missing, just cut new ones