Cat Smith Working for Lancaster and Fleetwood
Public opening hours of the Lancaster collection point faced cuts, and last month I wrote to Royal Mail urging them to reconsider their plans to shorten the hours at the Lancaster Delivery Office.
Customers had heard concerns that the office would be changing from being open 8am-4pm Monday-Friday to being open for just 2 hours each day, with the potential that the customer service point may in future close entirely.
This was absolutely not on. It’s already a faff to miss a parcel delivery and make it to the collection point in time before they close!
However, I am delighted to announce that Royal Mail have now confirmed to me that they will not be reducing the opening hours here!
They are currently conducting a review of all of their “Customer Service Points”. The first stage of this has resulted in all current locations being preserved, but they are now reviewing opening hours to ensure they “match customer demand”.
Thankfully, in response to the pressure I put on them, they have now ruled out making any changes to the opening hours in Lancaster. This will come as a huge relief to the business and personal customers who regularly use the service along with the staff whose jobs were potentially put at risk by the cut in hours.
The response from Royal Mail’s Senior Public Affairs Manager was as follows:
“In November we announced a review of our 1,200 Customer Service Points to determine the optimum number of locations following a c.50 per cent drop in footfall since the pandemic. Having completed the first stage of the review, and considered a range of options, we have decided to maintain the current estate of Customer Service Points as we seek to further improve our first-time delivery rates.
Following successful trials. Royal Mail will additionally roll out automatic next-day redeliveries for missed parcels in the coming months. This is designed to make it even easier for customers to receive parcels at home, without the need to travel to a Customer Service Point. This initiative builds on the introduction of a range of alternative delivery options for greater convenience in recent years, including free redelivery, delivery to a neighbour, the option to leave parcels in a Safeplace and inflight redirections through the Royal Mail App and www.royalmail.com.
As footfall continues to decrease, the next stage of this review will focus on ensuring that Customer Service Point opening hours match customer demand. I would like to assure you however, there are no current plans to reduce the opening hours at the Lancaster Delivery Office.”
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