Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

NZ Post reducing number of street post boxes

Updated at 3:03 pm on 15 November 2010

New Zealand Post has been removing hundreds of street post boxes as it adjusts to a rapidly shrinking volume of mail.

The company has taken away 340 street boxes in the past three years - 9% of the country's network of about 4000.

Over the same period the total number of items posted fell by 20%.

The company's postal services chief executive, Peter Fenton, says most of the boxes were in suburban back streets, and were taken out because they are expensive to maintain and not being used enough.

The Postal Workers Union says New Zealand Post seems to be running down the network so it can pay higher dividends demanded by its owner, the Government.

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