The residents of SE22 East Dulwich, Dulwich village have been trying to put up with a failing postal service. It has led to lost documents, banking details, prescriptions, passports and lost lawyers’ letters. It has caused a lot of concern for many residents.
Resident in Dulwich village Pam Hulme says: “Royal mail is an essential service used by key agencies and its demise in SE22 has serious implications for all residents. We are utterly helpless and cannot do anything to retrieve crucial mail such as bank cards, legal certificates etc. The beleaguered staff at the sorting office have not had any effective support in order to tackle the huge backlog. My first delivery after three weeks was junk mail!”
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Residents expect a postal service they can rely on especially as it’s essential to conduct normal life. Many now fear to use the service as they do not want any important documents or packages to not show up.
Resident David Brady, took to change.org on the 7th of January 2022 to create a petition to fix the clearly broken postal service. He has decided to direct it to local MP for Dulwich, Helen Hayes and councillors for Southwark Victoria Olisa, James Mc Ash and Charlie Smith. The petition aims for 1500 signatures and now has over 1000.
Residents believe that the closure of Silvestester’s Road sorting office to move to Peckham in 2017, combined with staff shortages and covid is what is to blame for the lack of postal organisation. However, the problem had existed long before covid with awareness all over the internet and news and is likely to continue unless something is done.
The local MP Helen Hayes is aware of the situation and the issue has been featured in numerous articles by Southwark News. She had also taken to twitter in September 2020 stating she had visited the relocated delivery office in Peckham to see the issue herself. She too is in agreement with most residents that the closure of the Silvestesters Road’s sorting office is disastrous.
Yet all these steps for a resolution have done nothing to fix the issue.
SE22 resident Julia Pal says: “ Since the closure of the sorting office in East Dulwich, the postal service in SE22 has been getting worse and worse. It is now totally unreliable. We are still receiving Christmas cards (on 7/8 Jan) that were stamped by Royal Mail on 10 Dec- almost a month late! We are also missing two packages ordered in mid-December. The service is so bad it makes me worry about using it for anything important. Royal Mail should be a reliable service for all- it’s essential!”
Residents need reliability and a proper solution to the issue. The postal issue has gone on for an inconveniently long time with far too many people being notified and not enough being done.
