Campaign to restore Rishton post box (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Campaign to restore Rishton post box

12:28pm Wednesday 8th September 2010 in

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A CAMPAIGN has been launched to replace a ‘well used’ post box that has been removed from a neighbourhood in Hyndburn.

A petition with 440 names has been sent to Royal Mail bosses in a bid to resolve the situation, which residents claim has left them disadvantaged.

The post box was removed as part of a redevelopment in James Street, Rishton, earlier this year.

It left more than 1,000 residents, many of them pensioners, with a steep climb up in to the village to the nearest facility hundreds of metres away.

Resident Mary Stinson, 63, said that the post box was ‘essential’ for the elderly population in the area.

The grandmother-of-16, of Burton Street, said: “Everyone in this area feels the same. The postal service is the way that many people in this area keep in touch and losing our post box is a blow.

“The nearest is now a long way up a steep hill into the centre of Rishton and there are a lot of people who feel cut off without it.

“The older generation just don’t use computers and email and written correspondence is very important to us.”

Neighbour Eileen Starkey, 88, said: “I have lived in this area all of my life and we need a post box. There are a lot of people upset about this.”

Two local councillors, Harry Grayson and Ken Moss, have written to Royal Mail and suggested the site of a former phone box in nearby Holt Street for a possible replacement.

Coun Moss said: “We have had excuse after a excuse but nothing has happened.

“More than a third of the 4,000 residents of Rishton do not have a local post box.”

Royal Mail bosses said the original facility was removed when the building it was built in to was demolished. A study is now being completed to find if a new post box is necessary.