UK watchdog attacks mail box changes

ROYAL Mail has quietly introduced unannounced changes to collection service information displayed on its post boxes, the postal watchdog said yesterday. It no longer guarantees more than one daily collection from letter boxes and has removed tabs which tell customers if they have missed the last post. Boxes have been left overflowing in busy areas as the efficiency drive is rolled out, according to Postwatch, the postal services consumer rights organisation. And new plates on the front of boxes do not redirect people wanting a later collection to the nearest depot, it says, but to the one most convenient to Royal Mail. A Postwatch spokesman described the changes as a retrograde step for consumers. “We haven’t seen any literature to say this was going to happen and there was no consultation with consumers or with us.” A Royal Mail spokesman denied that the changes had resulted in overflowing boxes. “These changes are all about making information more accessible to partially sighted and blind people. The number of collections we make and the times we make them have not changed, it’s the design of the information on the plate that’s different.”