Mail deliveries dry up down 'dodgy' drives

Jack Lovelock (right) and neighbours have been given a deadline to move their mailboxes. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

New Zealand Post quotes "health and safety" reasons for its refusal to deliver mail to Jack Lovelock's Hobsonville home, but the retired engineer says the excuse is nothing but a smokescreen to save costs.

The state-owned enterprise this week sent Mr Lovelock a letter to say it would no longer deliver down his private right-of-way. His six neighbours got the same bad news.

And it appears everyone with a mailbox more than a few metres from the street will eventually land in the same basket.

For 12 years mail had been delivered to people living in his subdivision, Mr Lovelock said.

"Totally out of the blue we get a letter saying we have 14 days to move our letter box out to the street, or mail will no longer be delivered."

The letter said if he failed to move his mailbox he would have to pick up his post from the Westgate Delivery Branch.

Mr Lovelock said the letter contained an "element of dishonesty" in that it cited health and safety concerns for its delivery workers, when in fact the company had an agenda to save costs by reducing services.

Mr Lovelock said: "Time-and-motion experts have told them 'look, you can save 30 seconds on each letter-box by not going up right-of-ways; multiply that by 10,000 boxes for every delivery day of the year and you save thousands."

He and his neighbours would fight the change "tooth and nail". He said customer service was being eroded across the country.

"It's appalling. If they had any competition they'd be dead in the water. Because they're a monopoly they think they can get away with this."

NZ Post spokesman Richard MacLean said the policy was set at head office, but was nothing new.

"We have sent these letters to households for years and years. It's not a new campaign, but we're happy to admit that over the past year or so we've stepped up issuing these letters around the country."

It was possible that thousands of people had been or would be affected, he said.

Some regions implemented the policy more rigorously than others, and a number of complaints had been fielded in Christchurch as well as in Auckland. But Mr MacLean rejected Mr Lovelock's assertions that it was about shaving time off delivery rounds.

"We want to meet legislative requirements under the Health and Safety Act.

"We are getting posties in private right-of-ways being hit by cars."

He agreed that could happen on any road or footpath, but said NZ Post had always required that mailboxes be placed as close to the street as possible.

The trend in recent years had been for housing to shift down right-of-ways.

Many inconvenient and dangerous locations were being "called in" by posties themselves.

He said NZ Post would be happy to meet Mr Lovelock and his neighbours to discuss the issue.