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Queues stretched around Wokingham after Post Office bosses slashed the opening hours
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Parcel collection moves inside post office today

By Jon Nurse
November 22, 2012

Parcel collection chaos should be calmed tomorrow when the service moves inside the town centre post office.

Slow-moving queues stretched along Broad Street after Royal Mail delivery office opening hours were slashed following an incident where a woman was clipped by a post van.

Wokingham parcel collection office queues out on the pavement

But from tomorrow the post office in Broad Street will have a parcel collection point and will extend its opening hours on Monday ahead of the Christmas rush.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Royal Mail apologises to customers for reducing opening hours for health and safety reasons.

“When a customer has an item that can’t be delivered there will be a separate area to collect the items inside Wokingham post office.

“We would like to thank our customers for their patience.”

Becky Galbraith, 35, who queued for an hour in the rain to collect a parcel, said: “It’ll be contingent on them putting more staff on.

“Logistically it’s going to be a challenge to pull off.

“It’s a much better idea than making everyone wait outside. You might be drier, but you’ll still be queueing.”

Collection times were reduced to 10am to 12.30pm as staff manned the gate to supervise people entering the delivery yard.

Parcels can now be collected from 9am to 5.30pm Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 9.30am to 5.30pm on Tuesday, and 9am to 12.30pm on Saturday.

Mrs Galbraith of Park Road said: “Hopefully the extended hours will alleviate some of the problem.

“People that are working will have to be clever to avoid peak times.”

Christine Kendell, 58, of Howard Road, who was frustrated with the wait when she collected a parcel two weeks ago, said: “I think this is really good news.

“I passed the post office this morning before 10 and there were already people queueing up. They’ve got wise to it.”

From Monday the post office will open from 8.30am to 6pm Monday to Friday in the run-up to Christmas.

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Most recent user comments 5 of 5

This morning, guess what. The queue in Broad Street was still there. It was just facing the other direction going into the main post office doors.

The effect was that everyone using the Post Office had to queue in Broad Street. Hardly an improvement.

PoneRana, Wokingham
23/11/2012 at 14:58

New opening times are still unworkable for people like me who have to work long hours. So that leaves us Saturdays between 9 and 12.30, the busiest time of the year on the High Streets, and I have to waste my Saturday mornings queuing with everyone else who also works in the week to pick up their parcel. The reason given for not allowing the public back through was because of the vehicles travelling in and out and the gate had to be manned. Why not follow some other collection offices and have at least one day where you can collect until 8pm e.g the old collection window opens 19:00 to 20:00. Come on Royal Mail, you can do better than that or haven't enough people complained yet for you to take this seriously?

Fi111
23/11/2012 at 13:19

This could be interesting as there are already queues outside the doors of the post office on pension day.

PoneRana, Wokingham
22/11/2012 at 23:13

This lot are unbelievable. Even when they finally do come up with a "solution", it's useless. What good are those opening hours for people who actually work during the day? And given that the queues in the Post Office reach the door most of the day as it is, people will still end up queuing down Broad Street. They need to wake up to the fact that they have real competitors who will put them out of business if they don't start running their operations for the benefit of their customers, rather than their own convenience.