Response from Royal Mail about parcel delivery complaints

 I passed on various comments from local residents to the Delivery Centre manager at Ledgers lane, here is his response in full

I hope you are well sorry that it has taken so long to reply but things
have been extremely hectic here due to an increase in short term SL that we
were experiencing. This has led to managers being out on delivery until
quite late in the evening again to try and ensure that we met with delivery
specification. However I have got some good news in that our recent
recruitment campaigns have paid off and we now have 7 new members of staff
in post who should be fully trained up within the next 2 -3 weeks, this
will obviously reduce the amount of late deliveries that some of our
customers have been experiencing.

With regards to your enquiries please see below:

Packets for delivery to the majority of Headington deliveries should be
back in the office within 24 hours of the card being left. We have had some
issues where items have taken longer than this due to the deliveries being
completed on OT in the afternoon and as such the collections that bring the
mail back to the unit from the post office have already happened before the
items have been brought back to the pouching off point. However this should
be resolved in part by the new entrants and the reduction in need of
utilising OT for delivery coverage. We also still have a couple of people
who have been putting 48 hours on the card for safety sake, by this i mean
that they don’t want their customers to come to the office and the item not
being here.

Another of the issues raised was that some residents were told that they
could collect their parcels within 5 hours of the card left. The time left
for collection will depend on the method of delivery and where the delivery
is. For example most of the East Oxford deliveries come back to the office
once they have completed and subsequently bring the items straight back.
Further more if the items were large packets and delivered by a van then
these to come back to the unit and thus a shorter collection time will be
offered.With regards to the Headington deliveries these do tend to finish
at their last delivery point and this leads to the packets being returned
to the post office and sent back to us via the normal collection route
which is why the delay occurs.

I would be extremely surprised if the staff chose to just leave a card for
an item without trying. The simple reason for this is that it takes longer
to write out a card than it does to deliver the items in the majority of
occasions. It is possible that the wrong time has been placed on the card
or that the customer was in a part of the house where they could not hear
the door. I would state however that the guys cannot spend very long
waiting at each door as it would be impossible for them to finish. During
the Christmas period our parcel traffic increased dramatically and this led
to an increase in work load for the staff and would also reduce the amount
of time that they could spend at each door. That said i still feel that the
majority of staff would have left a reasonable amount of time for the
customer to answer.

Parking is an ongoing issue with the site and i am also aware or the issues
that you other customer had in which they were fined for parking on the
road outside of the unit. With regards to parking on the road outside i
believe that this allowed as it is a public highway and the only yellow
lines are to the side of the building. I have heard that the company that
are responsible for parking control of the actual units are known to be a
bit to enthusiastic on occasion. As i have already stated it is my
understanding that people are allowed to park on the road.

With regards to the parking bays they are often full first thing in the
morning. A large percentage of our staff utilise their cars on delivery and
they park there vehicles in this area so they can load them with mail. I
will have a look to see if we can free up set of bays for customer parking
only which should relieve this problem. I will also raise this with the CWU
representative this morning in our strategic liaison meeting.

With regards to the black Multipla this is one of my managers cars – he has
to park on site as we often need to go out and visit staff etc at short
notice. Further more due to a H&S order we have limited space to park at
the rear of the building.

I think that if we can free up the first set of bays for our customers that
this should reduce this problem significantly. I would also like to add
however that we have had occasions where people have been parking in our
bays that are nothing to do with us and this also unfortunately reduces the
amount of space for our customers.

Closure of part of Cuckoo Lane

Part of the footpath in Cuckoo Lane has been closed temporarily for safety reasons while an unstable wall to the rear of Headington House is being repaired to prevent further collapse.  This part of the footpath from the junction of Osler Road to the junction of Stephen Road will be closed for three weeks from 2/2/09

Want advice on planning?

Planning Aid provides free, independent and professional town planning
advice and support to communities and individuals who cannot afford to
pay planning consultant fees. It complements the work of local
planning authorities, but is wholly independent of them. 

Planning Aid can help people to:

Understand and use the planning system
Participate in preparing plans
Prepare their own plans for the future of their community
Comment on planning applications
Apply for planning permission or appeal against refusal of permission
Represent themselves at public inquiries.
Planning Aid helps to meet one of the key aims of the government’s
planning reform agenda, which is to place community engagement at the
heart of the planning system.

The up and coming Planning Aid South information evening will offer an
opportunity for the public to come and meet staff and volunteers to
find out what planning help they can give members of the public and residents’ associations

It’s on Wed 11 February at 6 p.m.
Planning Aid South, 3 Woodins Way, Paradise Street, Oxford OX1 1HD

Click here to see their website

Water Watch latest

 Following a meeting between the Head of Environmental Development (who also chairs the Oxfordshire Flood Partnership meetings attended by reps from lots of other agencies), David has secured an agreement that a named person at the City Council will be tasked to manage specific complaints regarding flooding and sewage problems. We will let you know the contact details for this named officer as soon as we get them

Normal service to be resumed shortly…

Ruth writes..

Apologies to all for the relative infrequency of new posts on the website lately, I have been unwell and have now returned to a schedule of up to four meetings a day on top of the full time job, so please bear with me while I get back up to speed…  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

Statement from neighbourhood police

We are aware that there is public concern following the recent spate of
robberies in the Headington area. This is extremely unusual for
Headington which as we know is usually a relatively low crime area. We
would like all the residents to know that we as a Neighbourhood team are
working extremely hard along with CID and other departments to
investigate these crimes and provide reassurance to the public. I would
like to urge anyone who has any information regarding these offences to
contact us on 0845 8 505 505.
PS 1872 CLAIRE GRANT
Neighbourhood Sergeant – Headington North
Cowley Police Station
724-5113
07800702438

Water Watch latest

I have been pleased with the improving response to residents’ problems with sewage and clean water enquiries over the last three months, particularly by Peter Claridge of Thames Water who has worked hard to resolve outstanding difficulties.

There are, however, two big multi-agency problems which remain unresolved and which will require representatives from various agencies like the City, the County, the Environment Agency, and Thames Water, among others to sort them out.  There is a multi-agency committee at which these issues can be raised and this is chaired by John Copley, the Head of Environmental Development.  I have made an appointment with him and my colleague Cllr Altaf Khan for 27 January to discuss progress and/or action  in Brookside and Northway.  If you know of any other problems of continuing flooding or water contamination in your area please contact David or me – just click on Contact us on centre toolbar

Police update on incident at Lloyds TSB

*UPDATE 7/1/09*  Our neighbourhood police inspector will attend the next area committee meeting on 20 January to report on the level of crime in the Headington area

Thames Valley Police Press Release 6/1/09: Armed robbery – Headington

Police are appealing for witnesses following an armed robbery in Headington yesterday (5/1).At around 5.05pm, a man walked into Lloyds bank, London Road, just as it was closing and ran behind the counter and demanded money.

He is white and was wearing camouflage trousers and a jacket with a grey hooded top and had his face covered.

Det Insp Simon Morton, leading the investigation, said: “The offender was carrying what was described as a white Uzi gun, which the staff did not believe was genuine.

“He got away with around £1,000 in cash and made off on a bicycle.

“We are linking this incident to two armed robberies at Betfred in London Road on Monday 29 December and Saturday (3/1) and two others at Threshers in Old High Street on Monday 29 December and Sunday (4/1).

“Do you recognise a man of this description? Were you in Headington yesterday and saw a man acting suspiciously? Do you think you know who is responsible for these robberies? If you do, please contact police immediately.

“I would like to reassure the public that we have got a team of detectives working on this series of armed robberies to identify the person responsible.”

Anyone with information that could assist police enquiries is urged to contact Det Insp Morton via Thames Valley Police Enquiry Centre on 0845 8 505 505. If you don’t want to speak to police and don’t want to leave your name contact the Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555 111.

Community safety issues in Headington

We are aware that residents have concerns about the recent incidents at Threshers, Betfred and Lloyds TSB.

Headington is a friendly, welcoming and safe place for people to live, work and shop and it’s a shame that the activities of certain individuals have given rise to some anxiety in the community and in the press.

We are working closely with the neighbourhood police to ensure that they are giving these incidents high priority, and we hope to release a statement from the neighbourhood inspector on our website soon. We will post up details of progress on this site as we receive them, and are working hard to ensure that the situation gets back to normal as soon as possible.