Royal Mail urged to rethink parcel collection times at its Peterborough delivery centre

Royal Mail bosses are being urged to think again over changes to the times people are allowed to collect parcels from the Peterborough Delivery Office.

Customers currently only have limited windows of opportunity through the week to pick up parcels from the office in Papyrus Road, Werrington.

But Peterborough MP Paul Bristow says there should be more flexibility and opportunity in the times the centre is open to the public.

Now he has written to Royal Mail bosses to demand a review of the centre collection times.

At the moment, members of the public can drop into the centre to pick up parcels between 8am and 10am Monday to Friday plus 4pm to 6pm on Thursdays. The centre is also open for customer collections from 8am to noon on Saturdays.

But Mr Bristow, in his letter, states: “My constituents have said that these opening hours are not flexible enough to allow for the convenient collection of parcels.

He adds: “I would be very grateful if you could look into varying some of the opening hours to allow for some day time and evening openings during the week to allow the people of Peterborough more flexibility for collections.”

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We understand the importance that some customers attach to Customer Service Points (CSPs) as one of a number of ways in which they can access our services.

"An increase in doorstep services such as Parcel Collect and Safeplace are helping us to enhance customer convenience and deliver more parcels first time.

"In May this year, we also introduced automatic redelivery of parcels the next working day across the UK for customers who are not at home when posties attempt to deliver the first time.

"Over 99 per cent of parcels are now successfully delivered to customers on the first or second delivery attempt. This is reducing the need for customers to collect parcels from CSPs.

“To keep pace with the changing behaviour of our customers, we are amending the opening hours of CSPs. We have a range of options free-of-charge for customers who want to arrange for an item to be redelivered.”