Cessation of mail deliveries in Christchurch Residential Red Zone from 1 August 2013 (last delivery 31 July)

New Zealand Post spokesman Michael Tull:

For the safety of our posties, New Zealand Post has decided to cease mail deliveries in the residential red zone of Christchurch from 1 August 2013.

The last delivery will be on Wednesday 31 July this year – and we’ve written to those affected outlining how they can arrange to get their mail redirected or held for collection.

There were originally over 4,000 red zone addresses in Christchurch that received mail, but as people have moved out or made other arrangements the number of households remaining will have fallen to around 100 by the end of this month, when the change takes effect.

Over that time roads and footpaths in the Christchurch residential red zone have continued to deteriorate which has heightened the hazards our posties have worked around in the Christchurch residential red zone until now - which are primarily:

• Surface flooding and standing water, which often can't be safely crossed as there’s no way of knowing what the ground conditions are like beneath the water
• Trucks and heavy vehicles in this area, whose drivers aren’t generally expecting to see anyone else on these roads – which for our posties (riding cycles or motorbikes) has resulted in some close calls
• Uneven and potentially unstable surfaces.

Thankfully none of our posties have suffered serious injuries on these rounds – but they’ve endured a lot of aches and pains from riding cycles or motorbikes over uneven surfaces for hours at a time. Their arms and shoulders really take a hammering, and we have to rotate posties on and off these rounds, as the cumulative effect would be too much if an individual postie did those runs day-in and day-out.

We regret any inconvenience to those remaining in the Christchurch residential red zone, and we’re committed to working with them to make this transition as smooth as possible.

ENDS

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