Richard Baum

Last night I went out to post a letter, only to discover that my local post box on Rainsough Brow had been sealed off without warning. A note (clearly printed off someone’s PC and without any Royal Mail logo or contact details on it at all) had been stuck in a plastic wallet and pinned to the box, helpfully announcing to the world the blindlingly obvious – “This Post Box has been closed.” It also said that the box would be removed within 7 days. And there ended the note.

I was surprised and annoyed to find this out – no warning, no information on the reasons for the closure, no information on where to find out more, and no directions to the nearest alternative box. I live at the end of the street and am the local Councillor, and I don’t know exactly where the nearest box is, so I don’t know how people less familiar with the area are to be expected to know. What they will know is that yet another local service has disappeared without warning or consultation, and there’s little option but for them to accept it.

This morning I rang Royal Mail “customer services,” a falsely labelled operation who’s job seems to entail passing callers around between operatives until they die of old age. After 15 minutes of recorded messages trying to direct me to the website (tried that…), interspersed occasionally with someone telling me I’d got through to the wrong department, they admitted their complete inability to provide me with a service and I was given the number of the Prestwich sorting office.

I rang Prestwich, and was told by someone shouting across the office to the colleague who picked up the phone, that the box had been closed “for health and safety” reasons. I wondered how unsafe a post box could possibly be. Were children getting trapped inside, I asked? Were letter-writers being met at the box by a pair of small eyes and a little hand grabbing their letters from within? No, apparently not, although the precise reason for the closure was not made clear to me. Maybe there’s been a plague of exploding post boxes of which I have not been made aware…

The box will be removed within a week, and nobody there seemed sure whether a replacement will be provided. I made it clear that there are lots of people in Rainsough, on Hilton Lane and on Butterstile Close and Avenue who care a lot more than the Prestwich sorting office and would very much like not to be deprived of their post box as well as lots of their post offices.

I was promised a call back next week when certain key staff return from their holidays. In the meantime I am left to wonder whether, having failed to provide residents with any information on this at all, or consult them at all on their views on this post box, I should believe the Royal Mail now. I will keep trying to find out information, and won’t let the box go without a fight.

In the meantime, please ring the Prestwich sorting office on 0161 912 6902 to make your feelings clear and to try and find out the information which I couldn’t.

Rick