Royal Mail collections and opening times cut

The Royal Mail have cut back on collections from most local post boxes, with latest collection times now advertised as 9am in the morning.

At the same time, the opening hours of the counter at the Greencoates sorting office has been cut back to 8am to 10am, except on Saturdays, when it opens until noon.

The only post boxes to escape the new hours are those outside Hertford Post Office in Maidenhead Street (5:15pm), Greencoates (6:45pm), Bengeo Street (5:15pm), Birdie Way (4:30pm) and Fleming Crescent (5:15pm).

The changes are part of a nationwide initiative to improve efficiency.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: "A significant decline in letter volumes – down 60% since their peak in 2004/5 – means that many post boxes no longer cover their costs and contain very few items of mail, meaning collecting from these boxes is not efficient.

"Rather than decommission uneconomic low-use postboxes, since 2014 we have been improving the efficiency of our collections arrangements by using our Collection on Delivery initiative. This means the mail collection from these postboxes will be carried out by the local postman or woman on their delivery route, at a time dependent on where the postbox is located on that route. This has enabled Royal Mail to protect the 115,000 postboxes across the UK."

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