§ 20. Sir B. Jannerasked the Postmaster-General how many pillar boxes in the Metropolitan area, the City of London and Leicester are fitted with 7-inch openings; and, in view of the impossibility of posting larger packages in these boxes, which necessitates having to go to the nearest post office, if he will have all such boxes fitted with larger openings.
§ Mr. MawbyThe precise figures for which the hon. Member asks are not available. Approximate numbers of street posting boxes with openings of 8 inches or less are 1,000 in the London postal area, including about half-a-dozen in the City of London, and about a dozen in Leicester. I do not think that the replacement of all these boxes would be justified, but if the hon. Member will let me know of any particular case of difficulty I will gladly look into it.
§ Sir B. JannerSurely it is not a question of individual cases. Will not the Postmaster-General make some inquiry into this difficulty in general arising from the fact that people cannot get parcels through the letter slots? Cannot he make an inquiry into the whole situation to see whether some other kind of pillar box or letter box can be provided, with larger slots, for example, as in the United States?
§ Mr. MawbyWe have the present standard sizes for wall and pillar boxes of 10 inches by 1¾ inches and for lamp letter boxes of 8 inches by 1¾ inches. For any replacement, obviously the new size of aperture is followed, but with over 100,000 posting boxes in Great Britain it is difficult suddenly to undertake the replacement of all of them. What we try to do is to make certain that, where there are obvious difficulties, these are the places where replacements are made. If the hon. Member has a particular example in mind, we will look at it.