News story

17th December 2005

Early Start for Local MP!

Steve Webb MP at the Yate sorting office with postmen Mark Seaman (foreground)                   and John Toole

Northavon MP Steve Webb has paid his traditional early morning Christmas visit to thank local postmen and women for their all-year round efforts in getting out the post across his constituency.

The MP, who has made a visit each year since he was elected, began at the Pilning sorting office at 6.30am where he met the eight men and women who sort and deliver post in the Pilning and Severn Beach area. As the office also covers Steve Webb's home village of Olveston the MP was also able to pick up his post in person.

He then travelled to the largest sorting office in the constituency, at Yate (see photo). He heard about the changes to delivery arrangements earlier in 2005 which mean that postmen and women now have one larger delivery round each, instead of coming back after their first round to pick up items for a much smaller second delivery.

Commenting on his visit, Steve Webb said:

"Along with most local people, I am always grateful to our hard-working postmen and women whose day starts early in the morning and who get our post to us come rain or shine.

"The Royal Mail faces a challenging time in the coming months with the introduction of competition in deliveries from January, and I hope that the competition will be fair - not allowing competitors to cherry pick the easy deliveries and dump the cost of delivering to outlying villages onto the Royal Mail.".