Royal Mail respond to Ellesmere Port MP over CSP 'closure'

Mr Madders said that he had be contacted by 'hundreds of constituents' over the proposed change and had been in contact with Royal Mail for clarity over the issue at the end of last month. CSP's typically allow people to collect missed deliveries but can also be used by customers to post items.

In a letter to Mr Madders which was posted to Twitter yesterday (February 12), Royal Mail's Senior Public Affairs Manager, Michael Hogg, says that CSP opening hours had been altered across the UK in summer 2021 in response to many people returning to work following the relaxing of Covid restrictions. He adds that the organisation's intention was 'always to review these hours during 2022.'

Hundreds of constituents have emailed me this week about the proposed closure of the customer service point at the Royal Mail sorting office in Ellesmere Port- I had picked up rumours of this last month so had already written to them about it- this is their reply pic.twitter.com/8BclTE0RWk

— Justin Madders MP (@justinmadders) February 12, 2023

Mr Hogg said: "Customer footfall has fallen by around 50 per cent at Royal Mail's CSPs, compared to pre-pandemic levels. This drop reflects customers growing reluctance to travel to CSPs to collect missed parcels, as well as their growing preference for free redeliveries to the doorstep or to a local Post Office branch.

Royal Mail now allows customers who they are unable to deliver to the option of arranging a redelivery, requesting that the parcel be sent to another address or that it be sent to their local Post Office branch for them to pick up. 

Mr Hogg adds: "Finally, when we issued our Half-Year Results on 17 November, we announced that we were conducting a review of Customer Service Points (CSPs) at our Delivery Offices, taking into account efficiency and changing customer preferences. It is in that context that we are reviewing our entire network of Delivery Office CSPs but we have not yet finalised any decisions."

Several people were quick to question whether footfall had indeed fallen by half, with one person responding to the tweet to say that the organisation had ensured that less customers would make the effort to use the service by 'shortening opening hours and redirecting services.' Another said that they had recently queued for more than 30 minutes at the site.

A Royal Mail spokesperson now said: "In November 2022 Royal Mail announced a review of its 1,200 Customer Service Points to determine the optimum number of locations following a c.50% drop in footfall since the pandemic. Having completed the first stage of the review and considered a range of options, we have decided to maintain the current estate of Customer Service Points as we seek to further improve our first-time delivery rates. 

"Following successful trials, Royal Mail will additionally roll out automatic next day redeliveries for missed parcels in the coming months. This is designed to make it even easier for customers to receive parcels at home, without the need to travel to a Customer Service Point. This builds on Royal Mail’s introduction of a range of alternative delivery options for greater convenience in recent years, including free redelivery, delivery to a neighbour, the option to leave parcels in a Safeplace and inflight redirections through the App and website. As footfall continues to decrease, the next stage of this review will focus on ensuring that opening hours match demand."