What's All This About?

Towards the end of July, selected Rhuthun/Ruthin post boxes found themselves with a sticker applied, altering collection times. Fair enough. The Royal Mail has to react to the circumstances in which it finds itself, particularly as the number of items being posted in residential collection boxes is decreasing. Is it me, though, or did the post box labels make absolutely no sense:

'In order to improve efficiency we're reviewing our mail collection arrangements and revising collection times.

'From 15th September 2014, the final collection from this postbox will be made no earlier than 9.00 a.m. Monday to Friday and 7.00 a.m. Saturday. The latest collection time for the area is shown on the postbox notice'

Nothing changed on the post box notice to which the label pointed readers so there was an immediate contradiction. In the examples shown here, the *last* (not latest) time is 5.00 p.m. This didn't change on or after 15th September.

So, what has happened? I'd say nothing. Careful monitoring of my local box would suggest that the mail is collected at exactly the same time as before but the label does imply an eight-hour difference.

It may be that readers of this blog and the public at large get it. I certainly don't and I'm not alone. I have seen people posting letters who've paused and read the signage for some considerable length of time, as they try to figure out what's going on.

My reading is that on Mondays to Fridays collections will be at some point from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and that, to be safe, we should assume a 9 a.m. collection. Unless you know differently.

UPDATE: sure enough, it didn't take too long before the collection was undertaken by the post worker making the delivery. In other words, rather than a separate collection, it was undertaken during house deliveries.