Masterton post boxes to be axed

A third of the 15 post boxes in Masterton will be culled next week due to a fall in mail volume, according to NZ Post.

New Zealand Post boxes will be culled in Masterton next week, as reliance on "snail mail" dries up.

Five of the 15 boxes around town are earmarked for removal on Monday "due to low usage", says a sticker on the boxes. The boxes at 92 Colombo St, 45 Victoria St, 68 Cornwall St, 164 Renall St and 111 Te Ore Ore Rd will go but all those in the town's centre will stay.

New Zealand Post business performance and optimisation specialist Lisa McDonald said the five to be removed received as few as 18 letters a day.

"Since before 2008, we have been monitoring the number of letters posted in post boxes nationally and removing those with very low usage.

"This is because in the past nine years letter volumes have fallen from 1.2 billion a year to about half that."

Stickers were placed on the post boxes in late April, advising customers of NZ Post's intention to remove them.

"When making a decision to remove a post box we also take into account the proximity of nearby post boxes and post centres," she said. "We are mindful of the needs of, for example, retirement villages."

A box inside the Wairarapa Masonic Village was removed on Tuesday, said village manager Irene Bull. She said the key for the box had been lost for a while and she was told this was the reason for the removal.

Mrs Bull was unaware some of the boxes in Masterton were going to be taken away and was relieved to hear the one on Upper Plain Rd would be staying put. "It's good that one is going to stay."

She said the box was in walking distance and most of the elderly residents would be able to do a "loop walk" to the box to post a letter.

"They're probably taking boxes away that aren't used as much, but the more they cut down the less people will use them," she said.

Krinjal Valand from the Renall St Store said lots of people used the post box outside the shop, which will no longer be there this time next week.

A dairy worker from East Side Superstore on Colombo Rd said some of their customers would be affected by the removal of the box outside the store.

She said older people who had been coming into the dairy were concerned they would "have to go a long way" to post a letter.

"In the summertime it's fine but it's in the wintertime it will be hard for them."

A Radio New Zealand report yesterday said NZ Post had removed about 1300, or 30 per cent, of its mail boxes since 2008.