I needed to post a birthday card a few days ago and was just about to pop it into the box by Knoops when, luckily, I saw that the notice about the collection times from this box had been changed. The last collection is now 9am, Monday to Friday, and 7am on Saturday. The little plaque showing the day of the next collection is missing from this box so I retained the card for posting at the main box outside the sorting office.
The box at the George was also showing the same times and its little plaque confirmed that the collection for that day had already taken place.
Boxes outside the centre of town have had these very early last posting times for about two years now but those at Knoops and the George always had a last collection at about 4pm on weekdays and 10:30am on Saturday and were very convenient. Now, to be sure that mail is collected on the day of posting, it will be necessary to go to the main box.
The price of stamps recently rose sharply. With the above reduction in collections along with the fact that the delivery office opening hours are also very much reduced, it is clear that, once again, the public are paying more for less.
Incidentally, the new stamps, with their fancy QR codes, are considerably larger than the old ones and, presumably, cost more to produce. Hopefully the benefits they bring outweigh this additional cost.
