Have you seen a postbox wrapped up in a bin bag with a sign saying ‘Out of service’ lately?
If so, your local street has most likely been chosen for a ‘post box of the future’, the new solar-powered collection points being rolled out.
They can take small parcels as well as letters, but there’s one major catch…
The solar panel on the top means traditional knitted box toppers, which have celebrated everything from Christmas to the Olympics, will stop the box from working.
Metro went to try out one of the new postboxes, and ask people what they thought of it.
One woman, who had watched a box in Putney being installed but wasn’t sure what it did, said that while any topper would block the solar panel, it wasn’t the only option for guerilla knitters.
‘If they are dotty enough to put hats on postboxes, they can do a waistcoat or a scarf or something. They will have to be inventive,’ she said.
But although she does occasionally print a label and send a parcel at the post office, her concern is the new postboxes wouldn’t even weigh the item, and you’d have to do it yourself at home too: ‘I won’t be using it.’
In August, Royal Mail announced they would begin installing 3,500 of the high-tech postboxes, and they have started to pop up all over, from London to Edinburgh, Manchester, and Sunderland.
Designed to look as close as possible to the traditional cast iron boxes, they are still pillar-box red, and look similar from a distance.
The one we inspected even had the insignia ERII for Queen Elizabeth II, even though it’s now three years since she died in 2022, so you might expect a new box to say CRII by now.
We found the new style of box easy enough to use, with the most complicated part buying and printing your own delivery label at home.
You press a button which lights up green to activate the scanner, and then after waving the code at it, it beeps and opens the slot to drop off your parcel. In it goes, and that’s it.
But Steve, a postman with Putney Delivery Office, told Metro that not everyone was getting to grips with the new style of box.
‘I had a blind lady come up to me and mention the gap was not large enough [for letters], and I was trying to point her to where the gap was,’ he said.
‘A lot of people think they are parcels only, and they’re asking me, “Can I put letters in?” They find them intimidating.’
He said that when he finishes his route, he goes and collects everything together from the parcel box, which means there is more to empty, volume wise.
But he was accepting of the boxes: ‘It’s what’s happening; everything is going digital.’
Royal Mail say this is their biggest design change for 175 years, and means that people will have a convenient place to drop their parcels, rather than having to queue at the post office.
There are 115,000 postboxes in the UK located within half a mile of 98% of addresses, while post offices are much farther between.
Zoe, a woman in her 60s in Putney, said she had not used the new parcel box since it appeared three weeks ago, but added: ‘I think it’s progress.
‘Generally, I think it’s good to go with the times, but we all have nostalgic feelings about the old ones.
‘If it’s easier than going to the post office, I’m for it.’
She said she had wondered about whether the ‘very sweet’ knitted toppers would still work with the new boxes, and said she hoped they could be adapted to the new shape.
It is already possible to post a small parcel at a any postbox if you get the label in advance and it fits in the slot, but the new ones can accomodate anything up to the size of a shoe box.
Jack Clarkson, of Royal Mail, said: ‘We are all sending and returning more parcels than ever before. This trend will only continue as online shopping shows no signs of slowing, particularly with the boom of second-hand marketplaces.
‘Our message is clear, if you have a Royal Mail label on your parcel, and it fits, put it in a postbox and we’ll do the rest.’