Royal Mail Sorting Office Closure Meeting..

[edhistory]

There's normally not much chance of getting an 1891 brick built non-domestic building listed.

Our sorting office is different.

It was designed by Henry Tanner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tanner_(architect)

The architectural plans have been lodged in the National Archives.

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_q=east+dulwich+sorting+tanner

As far as I know, none of his Post Office work has been given listed status. If one representative example should be saved it might as well be Silvester Road.

We have not been able to establish if the friezes are made of pulhamite. If so this would be an extra bonus for listing. There are very few in situ examples in place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulhamite

We have been assured that the war memorial will not be destroyed.

John K

[Penguin68]

Whilst there is nothing to stop the Royal Mail selling off a listed building, any listing may make it less attractive to potential buyers, for whom the site, not the building will be the attraction. By reducing its 'saleability' this may encourage Royal Mail to re-think its plans.

However there is a long history of 'listed' buildings being sufficiently neglected (or 'taking fire') to make their eventual destruction inevitable - I think of the listed Hoover Building on the A40 which was destroyed despite its listing - and there are a myriad of other examples.

But still, worth a try.

[nxjen]

Happy to be proved wrong but I thought the Hoover building has survived as a Tesco Superstore? Another marvellous art deco building, the Firestone Factory building on the Great West Road was demolished in 1980 to forestall listing.

[edhistory]

> By reducing its 'saleability' this may encourage Royal Mail to re-think its plans

Destroy the building and take the miniscule fine on conviction as a small business cost.

[Penguin68]

Happy to be proved wrong but I thought the Hoover building has survived as a Tesco Superstore? Another marvellous art deco building, the Firestone Factory building on the Great West Road was demolished in 1980 to forestall listing.

Yes - sorry you are completely right - both by the same architect I believe but it was the Firestone which was destroyed. The Hoover building is now a Tesco - silly because I regularly drive past it. It doesn't look quite the same because of other buildings around it now.

[Sue]

Penguin68 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> One might assume that the final decision, whatever

> it is and whenever it's made, at least won't

> happen without senior management being aware of it

> - and therefore feeling some slight element of

> responsibility. With an MP in the loop, avoiding a

> PQ (even when it's a nationalised industry) is

> something most CEO's want.

No, of course not, I wasn't suggesting it wouldn't.

Both letters to the CEO and letters via or copying in an MP would be dealt with much more quickly than letters to people lower down the line.

And yes senior managers would have to be involved in something going out in the CEO's name and signed by her, unless it was a standard response, which I can't think this would be.

[Sue]

The issue with the listing doesn't address the fact that the building isn't fit for its present purpose.

Would it not be better for Royal Mail to look (assuming they haven't done, which we don't know) at moving the ED delivery office to more suitable premises elsewhere in ED, for example as was suggested at the meeting, to an appropriately sized module (?) on an industrial estate?

[nxjen]

The bottom line is it's a cost cutting and asset stripping exercise, that the building is no longer fit for purpose works for them. It would be interesting to know if this is a pattern repeating itself throughout the country since RM was privatised.

[Sue]

To be fair, if they are sometimes having to sort post outside because the building cannot cope with the increased volume, then regardless of asset stripping, it is unfit for purpose.

So if it cannot be made fit for purpose, which we do not know, then from most ED residents' point of view it would be better to sell or let it and relocate elsewhere in ED than to relocate to the existing building in Peckham.

[lavender27]

Is this just temporary, while they sort out Sylvester

[singalto]

It would be a permanent move. I gather the Peckham office is already bursting at the seams so I don't understand the move.

[edhistory]

Large site, many slave boxes, big profit.

[James Barber]

Hi nxjen,

The sorting office on Alleyn Park was closed a number of years ago for parcel collections. This has been a trend for some many years.

They give two reasons.

1. somewhere to park vehicles. I've suggest some public highway could be designated to help resolve that.

2. sheer quantity of parcels. I need to explore this.

[Penguin68]

Bad timing of Mrs May - this may not be the best moment to divert the attention of Ms Hayes and Mr Barber away from the Sorting Office(s) closure towards trivial issues of national elections. Hey ho.

[katanita]

I've had a response to my email to the Royal Mail CEO, Moya Greene, below. It doesn't address concerns about the significantly increased distance to travel for ED residents (so I will reply to point that out, again), but does say that if they choose Peckham it will be upgraded to cope and that there will be no compulsory redundancies:

Thank you for your patience while I investigated your complaint regarding the closure of East Dulwich Delivery Office.

Royal Mail explores these relocation options to help us provide better facilities for our postmen and women as well as to meet the needs of our customers. The closure of the East Dulwich Delivery Office is still going through consultation with the trade union and all options are being considered.

No final decision has been made and we remain committed to providing a first class service to our business and residential customers served by this Delivery Office. Should the move to Peckham be the option that we decide to go down, Peckham will be upgraded to deal with the increase in customers.

We have a strong track record of managing change and we will work with our staff and our unions, to give them the opportunity to discuss the implications in detail. There would be no compulsory redundancies as a result of this relocation. If it proceeds, we would also reimburse our staff for any extra mileage incurred by changes to their place of work.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write to us.

Kind Regards

Nicola

Nicola Barnham

Royal Mail - Chairman and Chief Executive Office

[DadOf4]

What a nightmare.

I suppose, as a private company, RM have no obligation to keep services like this running.

Also, my guess is it looks pretty attractive to cut costs like this when there is another pickup point only a couple of miles away (which would be fine in a rural area)

Heres an idea: theyre a private company, bothered about their sales & competition. So threaten to boycott them and use alternatives.

At work, RM is our last choice for parcels anyway - they are the most unreliable and often the most expensive - theres lots of alternatives for parcels and I often have them collected/delivered SE22 or sent to a collection point (*corner shop). FedEx, Globalexpress,UPS will all either collect or allow you to drop off at corner shops

I think, with a little bit of co-ordination here, an entire area threatening to boycott them & use (often unknown competition) would be a great story for, at a minimum, London news.

A few stories like that and theyd quickly change their minds

[redjam]

I'm going to write to the CEO too - I imagine the more people who do, the more chance they might have of listening. Seems like now is the right time to do so if they have not yet reached their decision.

Katanita, what email address did you use? I found moya.greene@royalmail.com listed at ceo.com - is that the one you used?

[nxjen]

Dadof4: that's great for when we're sending parcels but when we're ordering stuff to be sent to us, the method of dispatch is usually outside of our control.

[edhistory]

> to help us provide better facilities for our postmen and women

Just for the record:

Silvester Road

Mess / staff room 84.0 sqm

Highshore Road

Restaurant 88.0 sqm

Kitchen 30.5 sqm

[katanita]

@redjam, yes, that's the email address I used, copying in Helen Hayes MP which was suggested earlier (helen.hayes.mp@parliament.uk)

[Sue]

katanita Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I've had a response to my email to the Royal Mail

> CEO, Moya Greene, below. It doesn't address

> concerns about the significantly increased

> distance to travel for ED residents (so I will

> reply to point that out, again), but does say that

> if they choose Peckham it will be upgraded to cope

> and that there will be no compulsory

> redundancies:

>

>

> Thank you for your patience while I investigated

> your complaint regarding the closure of East

> Dulwich Delivery Office.

>

> Royal Mail explores these relocation options to

> help us provide better facilities for our postmen

> and women as well as to meet the needs of our

> customers. The closure of the East Dulwich

> Delivery Office is still going through

> consultation with the trade union and all options

> are being considered.

>

> No final decision has been made and we remain

> committed to providing a first class service to

> our business and residential customers served by

> this Delivery Office. Should the move to Peckham

> be the option that we decide to go down, Peckham

> will be upgraded to deal with the increase in

> customers.

>

> We have a strong track record of managing change

> and we will work with our staff and our unions, to

> give them the opportunity to discuss the

> implications in detail. There would be no

> compulsory redundancies as a result of this

> relocation. If it proceeds, we would also

> reimburse our staff for any extra mileage incurred

> by changes to their place of work.

>

> Once again, thank you for taking the time to write

> to us.

>

> Kind Regards

>

> Nicola

>

> Nicola Barnham

> Royal Mail - Chairman and Chief Executive Office

Thanks for posting that.

It doesn't address the distance issue or lack of parking for ED customers at all, does it?

Yes they are consulting the unions but the feeling I got from the UCW rep at the meeting was that many of the posties are not that bothered about moving to Peckham, because the working conditions in the Sylvester Road building are so bad.

What I would like to know is what if any other options they are actually considering.

But I haven't written to her yet :(

[Penguin68]

I have also received a reply from the CEO's office - not a clone of the recent one quoted which is a good sign. No differences in view where they match (i.e. final decision not taken) - but mine concentrated on their alternatives (delivery to a different person/ on a different day etc.).

I have responded by saying that for working people (most of those possibly receiving mail) Saturday would be the only viable alternative delivery day, and it is likely most would have alternative addresses also lived in by working people with the same restraints. With a collection office so far away/ difficult to get to from ED they couldn't expect people to try to pick up first thing in the morning on weekdays, so probably their Saturday Postmen (and Saturday collection office staff) would expect to be very busy.

I again asked why they could not do a deal with Post Office Counters to act as a collection point (as they do for Parcel Force). It was perhaps an irony that one of the reasons given for the need to move from Silvester was parking problems - precisely what they are wishing to impose on their customers!

[singalto]

There are no parking problems at Sylvester road!

[Penguin68]

Sorry - parking problems for their own vans...

[kiera]

No parking problems at Silvester Rd.were mentioned at the meeting - quite the contrary. At the meeting it was said that being able to park was the main thing the staff were going to miss by moving to Peckham.

When James Barber mentioned parking problems in his post of 16th above, I understood him to be referring to the Alleyn Rd sorting office. He was saying that the Alleyn Rd sorting office don't deal with parcels. I don't know whether it follows that Silvester Rd are taking parcels which should be dealt with by Alleyn Rd or other sorting offices, in which case it's not surprising they can't cope.