Commons hears letterbox safety bid
22nd January 2019

A bid to ban low and high level letterboxes from residential doors has been put before parliament as the latest stage in a 60-year campaign by the CWU postal workers’ union to establish a legally enforceable minimum height for the safety of its workers.

Conservative MP Vicky Ford moved a bill in the House of Commons for all new doors to have letterboxes no lower than 70cm or higher than 170cm.

She was supporting the CWU which is began campaigning on the issue in 1958. She told MPs: "There are over 95,000 postmen and women working for Royal Mail. They deliver to 30 million address, they serve each of our communities six days a week, every week of the year, and when I asked postal workers what I could do for them, they asked me to look at low-level letterboxes.

"This bill simply wants to stop developers from building swathes of homes each with a letterbox placed near to the ground and I hope that this will be a moment of unity in British politics."

The bill is expected to return for a second reading in March though parliamentary procedures mean it is not likely to progress beyond the stage.