Appalling deterioration in service – The Royal Gazette

Created: Oct 15, 2024 07:57 AM

Dear Sir,

When I was away at boarding school in Scotland, my late father used to write to me every Sunday evening. He would post the letter on Monday morning at the General Post Office in Hamilton before going to work. Almost without fail, the letter would be on the board when I returned to the boarding house for lunch on the Wednesday two days later. Every week.

On September 26, I posted a birthday card at the Warwick Post Office to a large city in England — not a remote town in Scotland. It has yet to arrive. I am sure someone can come up with the statistics about the volume of mail handled by the Bermuda Post Office 50 years ago versus today, and I am sure that it was many multiples of what our post office handles now. Yet their productivity and their service has sunk so low that we can’t get a birthday card delivered within 12 days — and the Lord alone knows when it will arrive.

It’s an appalling deterioration in service.

Is it time to acknowledge that the money we are spending keeping the Bermuda Post Office going is not giving us value and maybe it is time to shut the whole thing down and turn over mail delivery to a private company that will actually deliver the mail?

I am sure the Bermuda Post Office will say that it is all the fault of the Royal Mail, and that the mail leaves here in a timely manner. But at least the Royal Mail guarantees first-class delivery within Britain in 24 hours in something like 95 per cent of instances.

It seems as if our postal service is beyond fixing.

ELSPETH WEISBERG

Warwick