Save Whitstable and Herne Bay Delivery Offices
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Whitstable and Herne Bay Delivery Offices are going to close.
The ostensible reason is that the offices are too small to take the new walk-sequencing machines that are being introduced in the name of “modernisation”. So rather than bringing the letters to the offices, the offices will have to be moved to the letters.
Where’s the logic in this? There are about fifty workers in the Whitstable office. Every one of them will have to do four car journeys a day: into and out of work, and to and from their round. That’s two hundred car journeys every day in place of one lorry-load of letters.
You can double that figure to account for Herne Bay. So much for sustainability.
Meanwhile, according to the Royal Mail’s own figures, the number of letters is dropping. This is because of new technology, such as email and text. At the same time, as every postal worker knows, the number of packages are increasing.
The same technology which has cut into the letters business also allows customers to buy books and other large items over the internet. Ebay and Amazon have replaced utility bills and personal letters as the Royal Mail’s main business.
The point about packages is that they won’t fit through letter boxes, which means that, if a customer is out, the postal worker will have to leave a card and the customer will have to pick up their packets from the delivery office.
So what have the Royal Mail done? They’ve spent billions on out-of-date letters technology and a brand new fleet of vans, while closing down local delivery offices: the exact opposite of what’s needed.
This is a clear case of short-term thinking. The delivery office sites are prime real estate. They are being sold off now, in advance of privatisation, in order to temporarily boost profits while permanently undermining the service.
A saner option would have the company investing in delivery offices, opening up the facilities, and employing more staff to serve the increasing numbers of customers.
But since when did sanity get in the way of profitability?
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Join Save Whitstable and Herne Bay Delivery Offices facebook group. - Save Whitstable and Herne Bay Delivery Offices. CJ Stone's speech: pensions, packets & privatisa
The following is the text of a speech made by CJ Stone to the public meeting about the closure of Whitstable and Herne Bay Mail Delivery offices on Tuesday 23rd November at the Whitstable Labour Club. - Royal Mail is not delivering | Roy Mayall | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Roy Mayall: As profits dive, it's clear this management isn't modernising, it's running the company into the ground but why?
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Chris, this is madness! Makes you wonder who takes these decisions. Shopping on the net is set to increase year on year, whilst letter post will soon be limited to greetings cards and not much else.
As Amanda says, this really makes no sense. Short-term-ism at its worst.
Amanda I've been a delivery postman for 7 years and the whole mail is dropping thing is complete rubbish. I'm delivering more letters now than I was 5 years ago. RM is cooking the figures, sure items posted through RM is down but the amount that comes via our competitors has rocketed up! This is called Down Stream Access and I wonder if RM chooses to ignore that when collecting it's "figures" Sure some people have switched to paperless billing but the amount of junk mail, catalogues and charity stuff (not counting the Door 2 Door leaflets) has quite frankly exploded. Letter post will soon be limited to greetings cards....lol What planet are you from?
Hmm, from a postman's point of view, things probably haven't changed too much. The bags are still as heavy. The trudge is just as long. The difference of course, is at the sorting office end. I'm assuming that junk mail, catalogues, charity stuff, and Door 2 Door leaflets, don't require too much in the way of actual sorting?
Do you know what will happen to PO Box facilities, currently we collect our mail for the charity we run for refugees from the Whitstable sorting office.We do get a regular mail concerning letters from our funders, solicitors' letters, letters from our detained clients, letters containing donations. Email is not confidential and hard copies are essential. I will support the fight to keep these offices open? What happens to the staff? Redundancies?
Amanda, Chris is partially right and partially wrong. It's true that as postal workers we are carrying more weight now than we ever did, but it's also true that the volume of letters is down, despite Downstream Access. This is because there are less postal workers than there used to be. Junk mail, catalogues charity stuff and door to door take just as long to sort as they ever did, and the bags are even heavier.
Kate, I don't know what will happen with PO box stuff. You'll need to speak to someone at the office to find that out. Don't know what will happen to the staff either, though the relentless pressure is for less people to do more work, so I expect there will be redundancies.
Read more by CJ Stone
- A Memorial for Gremo
Vote for Iain Gremo's song 'Ants' on YouBloom. - 9 days ago
- The Fragile Ego
I was there to sell my book to the salesmen and women whose job it was to sell my book to the retailers, whose job it would be to sell my book to the public. - 11 days ago
- From ACT UP to the WTO: A Review
The word is zeitgeist. The spirit of the times. To have been around in any era, to have participated, even on a peripheral level, is to have absorbed some of its imperatives, some of its meaning. - 11 days ago
diogenes 18 months ago
Haven't you given up on this dump yet? I believe Cameron (or the royal pirate) is taking violin lessons.
Good to see your name in lights...Bob