Royal Mail Sorting Office Closure Meeting..

[beansprout]

I was told by guy in sorting office recently that it is closing and we will have to go to somewhere in Peckham by end of year. Apparently not many people showed up or sent forms back - pity as I assume now to late. Had I lived here then would certainly have supported fight to remain open - no doubt a developer will get their hands on it and convert it into houses or flats - no social housing at all. Wish it could be turned into a facility to benefit community - personally sad to hear about sorting office as I certainly will find it difficult if not impossible to get to Peckham.

[singalto]

I heard the site has been sold for ?7 million and will have flats built in place of the sorting office!

[Sue]

Yeh, well, a privatised Royal Mail has to keep its shareholders happy, doesn't it?

I'm surprised anybody is surprised, really.

[James Barber]

Hi Sue,

The West Norwood Post Office Sorting Office was proposed for closure at the same time but the employee union the CWU opposed this and the campaign keep it was successful.

The CWU support the closure as their members will have better facilities at the Peckham Office.

The ideal would be Southwark Council using Planning policy to ensure the site keeps the parcel collection element but the post sorting office moves to Peckham. I fear this is not being done.

[Jim1234]

Really? You blame Southwark for this? Yet it was your leader Vince Cable that privatised the Royal Mail? Pretty bloody sure I know who to blame.

[siouzie14]

Hi James

Is there an official notification of the closure of the SE22 office anywhere, and likewise the saving of the SE27 office?

Sue

[bob]

The staff have been told they will be relocated to Peckham Highshore Rd. They will be driven to ED in the morning to start their walk's but will have to make their own way back walk/Bus this is at the moment I understand they are not happy with this arrangement and talks are on going.

Bob S

[tomdhu]

Postie tells me today that the switch will be effective 17th September.

[se22]

Yes, it's been changed from 10th to the 17th provisionally.

[Sue]

bob Wrote:

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I understand they are not happy with this

> arrangement and talks are on going.

Surely they should have negotiated all this kind of thing before agreeing to the move, which I understand they did?

[jimbo1964]

Had my first experience of Highshore Road (I needed to return an Amazon parcel and Sylvester Road haven't been given the equipment).

I think we've been really shafted by this closure. Highshore Road is open the same times and only has one window. There are bound to be big queues at peak times. There's no parking either. I'm sad that we've lost our police station and now this. Both very important for the local community.

[singalto]

Jimbo1234, Sylvester road often has long queues as, apparently, does Highshore rd so Christmas will be hell. I plan to request a redelivery every time a parcel arrives when I?m out. Or maybe I should set myself up as a delivery centre for locals!

[Boddle]

I would get a redelivery except they stopped delivering in the first place last month..!

[Penguin68]

There seem to be genuinely operational reasons (not necessarily overwhelming ones) for closing the Sylvester Road sorting office as regards its size (in relationship to the mail and parcels now going through it) and the facilities (rather more the lack of them) for postal staff at the site.

However the area served by the office is a large and populous one, and one not particularly close to the new Peckham site, which is awkward to get to and offers no parking (unlike the current sorting office). It is an area where there are many working people who are not always (ever) in during the working week to accept deliveries. I am surprised that there has never been any consideration for finding an office (or existing business) local to ED where undelivered mail could be left for collection - as parcels were left e.g. in the Forest Hill Road Post Office. Most sub-post offices, for instance, do have a secure location where undelivered mail could be left.

The pressure on the Peckham Office for undelivered mail collections will be high, and I would have thought likely to get higher (that's why - mail volumes - Sylvester Road is said to have outgrown its site).

Maybe our local MP and councillors might agitate for some sort of local collection point for mail.

[Callie]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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I am

> surprised that there has never been any

> consideration for finding an office (or existing

> business) local to ED where undelivered mail could

> be left for collection - as parcels were left e.g.

> in the Forest Hill Road Post Office. Most sub-post

> offices, for instance, do have a secure location

> where undelivered mail could be left.

>

>

> Maybe our local MP and councillors might agitate

> for some sort of local collection point for mail.

Totally agree, there's got to be an extra storage space somewhere locally surely?

[Sue]

Penguin68 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------

>

> Maybe our local MP and councillors might agitate

> for some sort of local collection point for mail.

This was certainly discussed at great length at the time, and if memory serves was raised with Royal Mail by Helen Hayes (our MP) - who also turned out for the protest, which the vast majority of residents did not.

By all means raise it again with her, but she really did bend over backwards at the time to oppose this move, with very little practical support from most of her constituents potentially affected.

How many people even wrote to Royal Mail about it at the time when there was still a chance to influence the decision?

Various options for locally picking up parcels were suggested previously, but I have no idea how feasible they were.

I believe it was Helen who suggested a vacant site on one of the small industrial estates round here. Possibly the one near Barry Road.

[katanita]

Me! I wrote to them, and came to the protest, and I was shocked as well at how few people were there. But Helen Hayes did say at the time that she'd had a big response to the survey she sent out so felt she had sufficient evidence of local feeling being against the closure, which turned out to mean nothing to Royal Mail anyway. Massive respect to Helen Hayes for her efforts though. It's still very frustrating.

[redjam]

Well I wrote to Royal Mail (got a bland corporate reply) though unfortunately wasn't available to come to the protest meeting. I don't think lack of people turning up to the meeting means very much - I suspect most people simply didn't know about it or (like me) had other commitments that day. I'm sure once the reality hits that they're going to have to get a bus to Peckham every time they miss a parcel then people will be more motivated to complain.

I've just asked our new local councillor - over on his thread - whether he would be willing to take up the cause. Here's hoping. Seems mad for an area of this size not to have its own collection point.

[singalto]

I wrote to Royal Mail and came to the meeting..

[Sue]

Don't remember a meeting? Who organised that?

But my memory is crap.

[singalto]

The details are in the OP?s original message.

[Sue]

singalto Wrote:

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> The details are in the OP?s original message.

Ah OK, yes I remember that meeting now. Apologies! I was there too.

The union rep was giving out rather mixed messages, if memory serves.

ETA: I was confused after RedJam's reference to a "protest meeting", but the meeting at the community centre and the protest outside the sorting office were two separate things.

[TJ]

The queue at Peckham rye sorting office this eve...

I am boycotting Royal Mail and companies that send with them from now on.

[KidKruger]

Wow. What a joke !

Shareholders will be sorted though, that?s what matters.

I got in Saturday?s last day queue quite early, there were a few people who did not want to have to traipse to a Peckham.

Having seen your photo I?ll have to seriously consider not using Royal Mail to avoid heading up to Peckham, in full knowledge that it won?t change anything.

[Jim1234]

This is an absolute disgrace. Really this is a symbol of how we are being sold out to private cash at every opportunity.

Though its not much of a consolation, remember you can get your parcels redelivered (including to leave with a neighbour) here: https://m.royalmail.com/h5/redelivery