Residents fed up with paying extra for rural post classification

NZ Post will not change its rural delivery classification for Tekapo which means residents will continue to pay more to have mail delivered which they have to collect themselves. Tekapo resident and business owner Stephen Hunter contacted the company hoping it would consider lifting the rural delivery classification from residential properties in the town because residents were fed up with paying a rural surcharge and then having to collect their post from the post shop.

Tekapo is situated on State Highway 8, a busy tourist and freight route between Christchurch and Queenstown, and sits between the towns of Fairlie and Twizel, which are not rural delivery zones.

Tekapo has grown rapidly in recent years but, despite now being home to about 600 permanent residents, the town still falls into a large rural delivery zone which incurs a postal surcharge of $3.70.

The postcode which covers Tekapo, considered a postal location rather than a postal address, also covers a large portion of the Mackenzie district, including Lake Benmore and Aoraki/Mt Cook Village. Twizel and Fairlie have unique postcodes. Hunter said he believed change was possible after what he described as positive communication with a NZ Post representative regarding the matter.

He said he had received an email from NZ Post address specialist Dale Stanton confirming the issue was being looking into.

In the email, Stanton told Hunter: ‘‘I can confirm that I have heard back from the delivery manager for the area who is keen to remove the rural flag as he understands exactly what the issue is’’. Stanton explained in the email, which has been seen by Stuff, there were a couple of options they could explore to put the changes in place including a technical solution or manual process to alter the addresses in the NZ Post system.

‘‘As you can imagine there is a number of addresses in Lake Tekapo and my preference is that they all get done at the same time.’’

However, on Tuesday, a NZ Post spokesperson told Stuff it was ‘‘not currently looking into reclassifying this area but we constantly assess whether an area is appropriately defined’’. Hunter said he was disappointed to learn NZ Post would not change the classification.

‘‘They are scared, you can bet your bottom dollar it is because it might be setting a precedent that could see them losing a lot of money,’’ Hunter said.

‘‘I wonder how long, how widespread, and just how profitable milking this cash cow has been.’’

Last week, NZ Post announced a half-year net profit after tax of $31 million, despite an 11 per cent decrease in letters being sent.

NZ Post chief executive David Walsh said profit generated by parcels was good news but the company still had to manage the decline in letter sending. ‘‘Providing a physical mail service that meets the needs of both rural and urban New Zealand, and organisations that send a lot of mail, is part of NZ Post’s DNA – but it must be financially sustainable on its own,’’ Walsh said. ‘‘As we look ahead, we continue to juggle the opportunity of a growing parcels business and planning for further growth, with the challenge of fewer letters, the declining revenue from this service and the cost of running it.’’

The second half of the financial year, after Christmas, was typically quieter, he said.