Vocal Voices

We’ve lost our main pillar box in the village, it was outside where the post office used to be until it closed last year and now the building has been sold the box has been sealed. That just leaves two small boxes, those rectangular ones on a post, one at each end of the village.

The collection time on the main one was always 5.15pm so when I walked past the small box at our end the other week I thought I’d take a look to see what the collecting time was on that, expecting it to be around the same time. Instead it’s 9am. Not ideal I thought so I thought I’d check out a few other ones I see while walking.

Each one states 9am, even in the town centre. Not sure if it’s a local thing, where Royal Mail aren’t sticking to a specific time anymore but are just collecting at random times or a nationwide policy?

The local PO box is just over the road from my flat. The last collection is said to be at 5:30 PM but I have never seen anybody there at that time.

The postie empties it once he has finished his round and that could be any time in the late afternoon. For a dedicated time it is round to the post office in the Co-op just round the corner for 5 PM.

It's not royal mail now tho it's a foreign buyer checkoslovia? Can't spell we don't ever get regular post men now I got a hand full of leaflet today plus 3letters
And it's gone to pot

Jo, all our neighbourhood post boxes on posts were changed to Last Collection 9:00 am over a year ago. And it's 7:00 am on a Saturday.
The main pillar box outside the High Street PO is still 5:15 pm.

From observation, however, the daily collection at our local box seems to be around 11:00 am. When you post your letter. be guided by what the metal tag "Day of the Week" indicator says.
If it says today, you're in luck. Otherwise, it's tomorrow then.

Our local One Stop shop is also a PO franchise. The box in the wall says 9:00 am, but if you go in-store, you can hand your letter over the counter for putting in the sack, and that gets picked up very late afternoon.
(If I do that, I tend not to pre-stamp my letter, so I buy a stamp from them, giving them a "sale")

These days, for 2nd class, we reckon we need to allow at least 7 working days from putting in the box to the letter arriving at its destination. And 5 days for 1st class.
I've commented to my mate who lives on the other side of Dorset is that it's probably just as quick for me to walk the 30 miles and hand deliver his birthday card than use the postal service .....

I know the day of the week tag was often a day or two out on the now sealed box Ossie so I’m not sure that’s reliable around here

I have a birthday card to post and was trying to work out when to post it. If I post at 9.30am and miss an early collection then it’ll take a day longer as it’ll sit in the box until the next day. Anyway, I’ve had a lightbulb moment. I’ll pay for the postage online and arrange a collection from home, you get to pick the day and get a four hour window for when it’ll be collected.

Frank, quite often I’d see the box being emptied at 5.15 or thereabouts if I was out for a walk so they did keep to the time here.

Problems all the way n jo
I forgot to say they are going to shut out big town post office this year so there won't be a post office in town at all

That’s awful Saundra!
The main post office here went from a 15 window office with queues regularly out of the door to 2 windows up the corner in WH Smiths, and now the long queues block the shop.
Our village post office closed last year, it was just a counter in McColls which closed completely due to the Co Op opening next door. The post office was the only reason people went into McColls and there was always a queue. The Co Op were asked if they wanted to take on the post office but said they had no room.

One of the banks in town is closing shortly, Natwest I think, and that follows Barclays which closed last year. Both said that transactions can be done at a post office, that’s if you can find one though.

The original main post office which had been there for many years closed and as moved to WH Smiths. When that closed t mved to a unit at the end of an arcade.
It was nextto Debenhams which was closing. No signs to say it had moved.

Then it moved to its presentlocationnext to Barclay's Bank. here are sighn outside indicting they sell sweets and other goods.

There is a post office near me which I use to buy stamps. Post box outside ays collections are at 9.0 a.m.

We have a good postman who delivers the letters and parcels.

I had three items (2 parcels and 1 letter) that needed to be sent via the post office on Monday. I had sorted the postage for the two parcels online, but chose drop off as my option because the third item needed the post office anyway to scan a QR code to print the label - it was an amazon return and for some reason I couldn't print the label here at home. First stop was the post office counter in my little village; it is located inside a little Morrisons (used to be McCalls). That counter is renown for being dire when it comes to being open and no surprise Monday was another "sorry we are closed" day. So off to a 2nd Post Office inside a little shop - again no luck as their scales were broken. I eventually had to go to a third post office before I could finally get things on their way.

Of the three items I sent on Monday I sent one as First Class Tracked and the other as Second Class Tracked because there really wasn't much difference between the tracked vs normal service (about 30p or so). First class item was delivered yesterday and the other should be delivered today, but looking at the tracking I suspect it'll be tomorrow only.

As for post boxes, it seems to be the same here as everyone else.... the larger pillar type one outside Morrisons and outside the Sainsbury's I go to are a later afternoon collection, but all the smaller ones tucked away in hedges on posts have early morning collection times.

Yep! 9am here too. I try to post everything actually inside a PO now - we have one about a mile away on the Barnwood road, and the main PO in the city centre. I believe that's under threat however

[rant] I bought four 1st class stamps yesterday - £6.60! The nice lady on the kiosk in Tesco asked if I wanted a book of eight, but I said I had no intention of taking out another mortgage...... [/rant]