Third World Postal Service

All

It may be a useful line of enquiry to establish if your address has been given a unique 'address point' as part of the 'Addresspoint' product which the Royal Mail currently use to guide the location of deliveries (and which they sell to 3rd parties like John Lewis' and Ocado to recognise delivery addresses).

As an example, most of the newly built apartments in Archie St (parallel to Tower Bridge Road adjacent to the east end of Tanner Street Park) are located in Addresspoint as being at 72 Bermondsey St. My own address is located as being within the next door commercial building.

In 1997, Cable & Wireless (using Addresspoint) refused to acknowledge that my address existed and it took 'You and Yours' (BBC Radio 4) to sort it out.

The scale of change in the north of the borough over the last 10 years may have something to do with this problem. That and the fact that the 'local postie' is a thing of the past.

Regards

Niall Connolly

Does anyone know how you can find out which sorting office your post comes from?

I'm slightly concerned about missing letters as our block of flats has a stupid policy where unless there is someone in then the post can't be delivered. Makes you wonder what then happens to the post??

All

Another point that I forgot. When walking the dog in Tanner St park, we quite often find post scattered about the park. Usually anything that is vaguely financial has been opened. We have taken post back to the postal address and often find that the post boxes (outside the gates of the development) have been forced open.

Some of the problems with the post must be put down to a) the design and strength of street level post boxes and, b) the inability of the postal service to get into such multiple address location to get signatures.

I'm not apologising for the postal service because we have had problem and have written letters of complaint in the past. Where we are possibly luckier than others is that there are only 3 addressses in our building and we all take in the post for others when the occassion arises.

Regards

Niall Connolly

I'm not sure how many people will be able to make it on Friday, but obviously the more who can the better. It would be a bit disappointing to have this enormous groundswell of opinion, finally get a chance to air our views, and then have only 5 people turn up.

Those who can't make the meeting - if you have the time to e:mail or fax the details of your complaint in the form I suggested above, I'd be happy to bring them along with me.

I guess the complaints that are likely to get the most publicity (and hence, hopefully, action) are the ones where credit cards and chequebooks have gone missing, so Henry - it'd be great if you could scribble something down.

Welcome to e:mail them to [email protected]

Christian's comment about 'The Economist' made me think because mine usually arrives on a Friday fairly reliably.

Clearly there are problems in parts of SE1, but I have to say my post has never been a cause of concern. I wonder if more precise locations may help track down the problems? ie it may not be a problem at sorting office level but individual postie's 'runs'.

FWIW I also have to go to Mandela Way, live up near Queen Elizabeth Street/Shad Thames and have had no problems with credit cards, Amazon deliveries and so on. Touching wood :-)

Al - any empty flats near you??

Fair few, I wasn't trying to sound "I'm all right mate" just being fair.

This will be the longest thread very soon.

You still haven't told me if you're a reggae fan Ivan!

Very much so Al, but it's been a while since I've had anything good and new to listen to, so my tastes are stuck a bit in (what I like to think of as) the golden age of ska and rocksteady).

And yourself?

Al

I think there is problems at both deliver and sorting office level.

I too can not complain about the day to day delivery, although living in a house I do not share my letter box with anyone and therefore do not have the associated problems. My regular postman know me well( I get quite a lot of post that is too big for the letter box) and will even give me post in the street if I pass him going out before he has delivered.

However I do get cards through the door saying you were out when we tried to deliver, when infact I am in on complaining this usually turns out to be the regular postmans day off.

Also I have had a cheque card stolen in the post and used frauduantly in Ilford essex, so may not be the local sorting office and had a cheque go missing although I do not know if any one has tried to cash it. I have post go missing (though of not particular importance) that I am aware of on average three to four times a year. Which seems a bit too often for my liking.

Poll top right --:
What is your experience of the postal service in SE1?

I assume the %age who think the postal service is 'Utterly dependable' are postmen.