UK Royal Mail statement on postbox collections

In response to comments by Postwatch, the consumer watchdog for postal services, a Royal Mail spokesman said:

“Royal Mail makes at least one collection a day, Monday to Saturday, from all 115,000 postboxes in the UK – this is a legal requirement, part of our licence.

All Royal Mail collections are organised so they will meet despatch times for onward transport – so that we can deliver as much First Class mail the next working day as possible.

New collection plates on boxes were introduced in early 2003 to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act. Because of the increase in the size of the print it is only possible to show the final collection time. Our collection plates also tell customers the location of the latest collection time for that area. Royal Mail agrees with Postwatch that ‘day of the week’ tabs might be a useful addition for customers. We can’t afford to introduce this at the moment though but we will look at it for the future when we’re in a position to fund it.

Collections from all our boxes cannot all be made at precisely the same time as each van makes collections from a number of postboxes. So of course some postboxes are not emptied until some time after the last collection time stated. But final collections should not be made before the time stated on the box and we’re sorry Postwatch found that early collections took place at around 70 postboxes in their survey. We’ve taken this up with local sorting offices to try to ensure this never happens.”