Star Comment: A backward step for the mail service
There is a simple way of making a judgment about the plans to close the sorting office in Shrewsbury.
And that is to ask this question: What good will come of it?
No good will come of it at all if the 160-plus Shropshire workers would lose their jobs, as the union claims.
As for the public in terms of the service that they get, the benefits look elusive. If anything, it is reasonable to suppose that killing off the sorting office and with it all the local knowledge and expertise of the staff who work there can only make things go downhill and lead to more misdirected and delayed mail.
Latest figures this week show that in the SY postcode area, which extends from much of Shropshire into Mid Wales and Cheshire, 95.7 per cent of first class mail was delivered the next day. This is significantly better than the national average of just under 93 per cent.
With the closure of the Castle Foregate sorting office, mail for Shropshire and Mid Wales will be sorted in Chester, Wolverhampton, and Cardiff. Imagine that – remote sorters having to deal with mail from our patch with addresses like The Bog and Ruyton-XI-Towns, Llanymynech and Ratlinghope.
Royal Mail says the closure is needed due to “challenges from digital communication, competition, and mail volume decline.”
No mention there then of the duty to provide a service to customers, who now pay very expensive prices for stamps and to post their parcels.
The Communications Workers Union claims there will be a massive impact on postal delivery times. That is a major reason to fight the plan.
But it is also objectionable because it will represent another loss of Shropshire sovereignty, local control, local decision-making, local jobs, and doorstep services - all things this county needs to battle to keep if it is to retain its vitality.
Comments for: "Star Comment: A backward step for the mail service "
Glyn Young
This will certainly worsen the service moving the mail to other regions of the country,local knowledge will be lost with Shrewsbury mail being sorted at Chester,its all about profit not about quality of service.
Suzanne Carey
Typical of Royal Mail..... Glyn is right its profit, profit, profit.
They cannot even deliver our work post correctly, it seems to go to other organisations before it gets to us, I have complaint repeatedly but to no avail. We also receive other companies post like the Shropshire County Court, how important might that letter be and yet it has to have another 24hrs in the post system with a message scribbled on the front before it reaches its actual destination.
20 + years ago Royal Mail were the be all and end all, though okay emails may have struck a death knell along the way, it doesnt mean their service to paying customers should become a total disgrace, should it??
Michelle Davies
If this proposal goes ahead not only will the customers of the Royal Mail suffer who don't even have a choice as to what company delivers their mail but the Postal Workers who brave all weathers and their families will suffer immensely. Why can't large corporations realise that local services are best delivered by local people with their knowledge of the area? Local knowledge and the experience of these valuable Postal Workers should be applauded and their jobs not "shipped out" to people who know nothing about the areas for our mail which they will be sorting!