Does Royal Mail have a legal obligation to deliver your mail?

robatwork

Jovialist said:

I think I'll bow out of thread, as everyone suddenly seems to want to argue with me.

I'll see how it goes, anyway. Thanks to the helpful people. Bye!

"Helpful people" = people who backed up your view that the postie is unreasonable.   You can add my voice to the people who think you should reinstate a more sturdy box back where it was and you do the walk each day. I didn't see a post from you where you said it was difficult or impossible for you to walk and collect mail each day but perhaps I missed it. 

I lived on a farm once and the track was OK for the postie but not the bin men. Had to drag my bins over 200m to the road every week.

How do your bin men get to the property?

custardy

TELLIT01 said:

Presumably the 'alternative delivery point' must have been formally agree with RM, and therefore any change to that may also have to be formally agreed.  As a short term solution, couldn't post be held at the nearest Post Office and collected from there?  I wonder also if the OP would be held liable if the postie slipped and injured themselves when trying to deliver.

If you mean Royal Mail office (remember,not the same company) then is a service no longer offered.

custardy

As an aside to the OP.
When RM finally get to drop/amend the USO. many rural folks are in for quite a shock at the good old days of postal delivery they currently receive.
Here we talk about 15 minutes to attend 1 delivery point. In an urban environment you could have a postie having delivered a street in that time.

unholyangel

Jovialist said:

unholyangel said:

Jovialist said:

theoretica said:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/78314/statement_delivery_exceptions.pdf

Is it a more than 7.5 minute walk?

Ah, very interesting. This is what I was after. I'm not sure to be honest, but I'd say it can be done in 5 minutes, each way, 10 minutes total, so it looks like I've got postie banged to rights on the rules.

Thanks for the replies, forumites!

Not sure you do have them bang to rights. 

I read it as 7.5 mins at a very casual and leisurely pace. While your comment reads 10 mins, if they're  walking at a brisk pace. 

ETA: it says measured "by a walking pace that is safe in all circumstances". Does that mean circumstances relevant to the road at any particular time? Relevant to the road generally? Or is it measured based on the worst possible conditions? 

I read it as 7.5 minutes each way, so 15 minutes is allowed?

P.S. I didn't say anything about a brisk pace or anyone having to rush. If I gave that impression, then I didn't mean to. I meant "I think it can be done" in 5 minutes, walking at a regular pace.

I did make a mistake in my typing (return time for one and one way for the other) but that wasn't the point I was making. 

Their 15 mins "safe in all circumstances" could be considering snowfall or ice or disabilities. Walking pace can be severely impacted by any of those (and more). Custardy might be able to answer that, he's your man for most RM questions. 

You say you think it can be done in 5 mins. Have you ever timed it? In what sort of conditions? 

You also say you were put in that position. I would say, based on the information you gave us, you chose to be in that position. You may have decided to move in rather than insure an empty property or rent it to a third party, but it was your choice as administrator of the estate. Just as it seems to have been your choice to move the mail box and redirect your personal mail.

I'm not criticising any of your decisions btw. You may have had very good reasons for making them. But they were still yours and no one elses. 

warby68

I also think you're being unreasonable - a new locked box in the previous position sounds a much more reasonable solution.

I suspect you will also struggle to have a complaint upheld where the postie can decide for themselves whether access is safe or not. Their superior won't have much motivation to disagree when to do so would make them less efficient and bring any perceived risk back to RM. The box being at the end of the road for x years adds to their case that you have unilaterally changed an accepted delivery point. I really don't think you can argue that a road unsafe for vehicles is somehow safe on foot. If a vehicle can slip so can a foot.

I actually thought it was commonplace for any longish drive/road especially private ones to have a post box at the end not at the door.

diinozzo

Surely the delivery point is the homemade box at the end of the road? The OP says the box is far away from the house for them...but then goes on to say it's not for the postie. Which is it?

user1977

diinozzo said:

The OP says the box is far away from the house for them...but then goes on to say it's not for the postie. Which is it?

Indeed - it sounds like Schrodinger's mailbox...

unholyangel

diinozzo said:

Surely the delivery point is the homemade box at the end of the road? The OP says the box is far away from the house for them...but then goes on to say it's not for the postie. Which is it?

To be fair to the OP, I don't think they said it was too far for them to walk, just too far away to place cctv. 

And someone else has already broached the subject on whether the relative ever had issues with theft (to indicate if the cctv is actually a reasonable requirement). 

diinozzo

unholyangel said:

diinozzo said:

Surely the delivery point is the homemade box at the end of the road? The OP says the box is far away from the house for them...but then goes on to say it's not for the postie. Which is it?

To be fair to the OP, I don't think they said it was too far for them to walk, just too far away to place cctv. 

And someone else has already broached the subject on whether the relative ever had issues with theft (to indicate if the cctv is actually a reasonable requirement). 

Read the OP...the first paragraph says the home made box is far away...no mention of it being too far away for CCTV at all.

Manxman_in_exile

diinozzo said:

unholyangel said:

diinozzo said:

Surely the delivery point is the homemade box at the end of the road? The OP says the box is far away from the house for them...but then goes on to say it's not for the postie. Which is it?

To be fair to the OP, I don't think they said it was too far for them to walk, just too far away to place cctv. 

And someone else has already broached the subject on whether the relative ever had issues with theft (to indicate if the cctv is actually a reasonable requirement). 

Read the OP...the first paragraph says the home made box is far away...no mention of it being too far away for CCTV at all.

There's been something nagging me about this thread that keeps bringing me back to it - now I know what it is!

"No Dougal.  This postbox is small.  That post box is... far away.   Small... far away... "