Saturday rural post ends soon

Saturday’s stroll to pick up the mail at the letterbox will be a largely fruitless exercise for rural families on April 1.

New Zealand Post will discontinue Saturday letter deliveries because letter volumes have dropped..

The state-owned postal service was given consent by the Government to move to five day delivery in rural areas in 2013. Initially about a quarter of rural delivery customers were put on five day deliveries from Monday to Friday.

The rest retained a six day delivery service.

From April, all letter deliveries or mail pick-ups on Saturdays will cease for rural customers.

Chief operating officer Mark Stewart said mail deliveries would continue from Monday to Friday.

Rural contractors would, however, continue to deliver parcels and subscription newspapers on Saturdays in areas where there was six day delivery.

‘‘Letter volumes continue to fall sharply, whereas the number of parcels and other products in our network is increasing,’’ said Stewart.

He said NZ Post had held off moving to five day letter delivery for all rural customers for as long as possible.

However, the continuing decline in letter volumes had no longer made six day letter delivery sustainable.

Stewart said the company was continuing to work hard to introduce new business to maintain a commercially viable rural network. They still want to give rural customers the best possible service.

In 2015, NZ Post reduced its standard postal delivery to major towns and cities from six days a week to three.