Jersey Post to remove more than a 1/4 of island’s post boxes

[POSTMAN]

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Jersey Post is set to remove under-used post boxes and step up mail collections from sub-post offices after a review of its collection network.

The Channel Island postal operator said today that the changes come in response to the ongoing significant year-on-year decrease in traditional mail volumes.

Plans are to take 51 of the island’s 183 post boxes out of service in three phases over the next three months.

Jersey Post said the post boxes being removed have “extremely low usage”.

The company’s review found that a third of the mail collected via its post boxes come from just 14 post boxes. Half of the network’s volume is collected from 36 post boxes.

Jersey Post said after making its planned cutbacks, it will still offer almost three post boxes per square mile.

Along with the post box removals, five post boxes will be added or relocated to better sites, while collections from 35 post boxes will be moved to earlier time slots. Collection from three post boxes will be reduced from two collections per day to once per day.

Collections from sub-post offices will increase “significantly”, with new 6am and 4pm collections Monday to Friday.

“Minimising impact”

Andy Jehan, director of postal operations at Jersey Post, said the company’s investigation had revealed opportunities to improve local mail delivery, but also for widening the window for post being sent out from Jersey on the day of mailing.

“The removal of some very low usage post boxes should improve the collection process, whilst minimising the impact on islanders,” Jehan insisted. ” The boxes selected have, on average, just five items of mail per day, with alternative post boxes close by in their near immediate vicinity. Our postal workers are currently driving to the edges of the island on a basis that means they often visit empty boxes.”

Jersey Post’s traditional mail volumes declined 6% year-on-year in 2012, with domestic letter volumes down 9% compared to 2011 and volumes leaving Jersey down 17%.

Jehan pointed to additional benefits from the adjustments to the collection network, including an improvement in the environmental impact of the service, as well as reducing costs.

He said: “These moves will improve quality of service and free up resource for the benefit of our whole operation, resulting in efficiencies that will be felt by all our customers.”

[UnhappyGremlin]

RM will do this in the UK if we're privatised.
It's against the rules for now, but that'll change after plenty of bleating about costs and unsustainability etc.