Councillors in East Croydon have started a petition to oppose the closing of the mail collection office located beside the railway station, as the privatised Royal Mail seeks to flog off its depot for development, and make millions of pounds in juicy private profit.
Ripe for redevelopment: the Royal Mail collections office at East Croydon
According to the Addiscombe councillors who have drafted the petition, “If you have to pick up a parcel you will need to go to their new site at Factory Lane.
“It is over two miles away from East Croydon by car and at least a 25-minute journey by tram or bus.” That journey time is calculated from the East Croydon tram stop; travelling from your own home will obviously add considerably to the time taken.
“The new site on the Wandle Park Trading Estate at Factory Lane is not easily accessible to non-car owners. The 2011 Census shows over 40 per cent of Addiscombe, over 50 per cent of Fairfield and one-third of New Addington households are without a car.
“Moving this office means many of us will have to take an extra hour every time we need to collect a parcel. Royal Mail’s suggestion, that our neighbours can take in parcels, is not a reality for many of us, especially for larger parcels,” the councillors say.
Royal Mail is seeking planning permission from Croydon Council to build 200 flats and commercial units on the site.
On the Addiscombe Labour website, run by councillors Mark Watson, Patricia Hay-Justice and Sean FitzSimons, they say, “As your local councillors we believe that some of the enormous profit Royal Mail will make should be reinvested in the local area and their plans should include a parcel collection office on the site. This way local residents won’t lose out.”
The councillors ask residents to sign their petition, which you can do by clicking here, as well as lobbying Royal Mail to ask them to include a parcel collection office in their plans, and to file an objection to the planning application. This needs to be done by Friday October 25, by writing to Croydon Council Planning Department at Planning & Environment Department and quote the ref number: 13/03126/P, or can be done online here.
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The ignorance of local councillors never ceases to amaze me.
As a matter of fact: Royal Mail will deliver your parcels to a nearby post office, as it has done for me on a number of occasions – much more convenient than a trip to Factory Lane or East Croydon.
The decision to move the remainder of the Croydon sorting operation out of the town centre was taken decades before privatisation. The decision was made soon after Royal Mail stopped using the then publicly managed railways because they were too expensive and too unreliable.