Roadside letterboxes for farms/remote addresses

Izzy · Post by **Izzy** » 29 Dec 2016, 21:12

If you have a packet, recorded or special do you ignore the roadside letterbox and drive up to the customer's' house? Or assume they don't want you doing so (dogs, chickens, children running around) and P739? Is there an official RM procedure?

wannabeek · Post by **wannabeek** » 29 Dec 2016, 21:15

I'd always go to the farmhouse with one of those. I've never heard of a postie 739ing an item at the postbox at the end of their drive. That would be very weird I think. How would you feel about that if you lived there? If you're worried about the dogs and bears or whatever, it's quite ok to park up by the house and honk the horn.

Having said that, if they're not in then the P739 goes into that postbox back at the end of the drive, so they'd probably think I didn't even bother!

Izzy · Post by **Izzy** » 29 Dec 2016, 21:24

I do go up to the house except for one where they have categorically said we must not. The reason I ask is as follows. One address I know has an American style (totally insecure) letterbox at the end of the farm road. The householder, a keen online shopper, has moaned to me about colleagues ramming parcels into his letterbox. I'd quite like to tell him the alternative is a P739 as I 'm sure I've been told 'the delivery point is the delivery point'.

I admit it I am quite passive aggressive!

wannabeek · Post by **wannabeek** » 29 Dec 2016, 21:58

Think about it from a different angle. The householder could easily remove the box and then you'd need to drive right up to the house to deliver every letter. I wouldn't ram a packet into a box or they're likely to take the box away. That box is doing you a favour, not them.

Many farmhouses I deliver to have their milk and papers left in a box at the end of the drive but all mail has to go right up to the farmhouse. I think the posties used to be allowed to take them up to the house on their way there, but that got banned a few years back.

glenfiddich · Post by **glenfiddich** » 29 Dec 2016, 22:51

One bloke in our office writes the cards out before leaving the office and pops them in the roadside box luckily he only covers rurals now and again

Izzy · Post by **Izzy** » 30 Dec 2016, 03:56

Thanks for the replies. As I said I do go up to the house it just annoys me that this bloke complains to me about my colleagues.

And yes th days of milk, papers and prescriptions delivered.

Post by **wacko74** » 30 Dec 2016, 05:37

One farm I deliver to is down a mile long track with a gate at each end of the track, one at the roadside and one as you enter the actual farmyard, we frequently have problems with access down the very rough track in wet, icy, snowy weather.

One day the farmer commented on what a struggle it must be to get down the track in a 2wd van, I agreed and I suggested one solution would be to put a box on the gate... the next week a box appeared, but guess which gate they put it on?

CAMPINGBLUNDERER · Post by **CAMPINGBLUNDERER** » 30 Dec 2016, 13:44

We recommend large dustbins weighed down by bricks , never an issue with parcels , just leaves a long drive for specials on the odd occasion

Post by **Lounge Lizard** » 30 Dec 2016, 17:32

Always to the farmhouse with parcels or for signature.

Izzy · Post by **Izzy** » 01 Jan 2017, 17:21

I'm a bit confused. If a customer decides themselves to put an insecure letterbox at the roadside in order to stop the postie coming to their house then ok that's their own risk. Why would you recommend the insecure brick in bin method? Is that at their risk or Royal MAil's?

That's why I asked the question in my original post. Surely the postie should assume they don't want you to come to the house.

yellowbelly · Post by **yellowbelly** » 01 Jan 2017, 18:09

Izzy wrote:I'm a bit confused. If a customer decides themselves to put an insecure letterbox at the roadside in order to stop the postie coming to their house then ok that's their own risk. Why would you recommend the insecure brick in bin method? Is that at their risk or Royal MAil's?

That's why I asked the question in my original post. Surely the postie should assume they don't want you to come to the house.

If any delivery point is not secure, doesn't the postie have the ultimate discretion whether or not to deliver the mail. Aren't WE (the posties) responsible
for the secure delivery of mail. I've always been told by the old sweats that it's fine until it goes wrong then it's not the customer's fault,
it's not RM's fault, it's not your Lino's fault - it'll be your fault!!!

woofwoof · Post by **woofwoof** » 11 Jan 2017, 10:52

Our provisional is to accept that fifteen minutes remains an appropriate upper limit for the travelling time in these circumstances. However, in order to ensure that only journey time and not time spent at the delivery point itself is taken into account, we propose that this should be calculated as a limit of 7.5 minutes for a single leg of the journey (implying a round trip of 15 minutes) on the time Royal Mail has to spend delivering on foot, or by the vehicle used for the delivery route, along private roads or tracks where conditions are poor. In addition, it should be noted that if there are other properties further along the same private road or track then the 7.5 minute limit begins again each time starting from the previous property in each case.