Cycling posties look set to be lost in the mail

THE traditional sight of a postman on his push-bike will be a thing of the past, after Royal Mail brought in new health and safety procedures that will replace push-bikes with hand-pushed trolleys.

But the trolleys that are replacing more traditional delivery methods have already come under fire from the postmen's union representative.

Under health and safety legislation postmen are only allowed to carry a maximum of 16kg of mail at a time, but the increase in demand for internet shopping means the majority of post weighs considerably more than traditional letters and bills.

For the past few months the service has been trying a new system on the streets of north Bristol, which has now come into permanent effect in three of the city's sorting offices.

Postmen across the whole of Bristol will be expected to adopt the new procedures by the end of the year.

For rounds within a mile of a district sorting office, postmen will conduct them using a "high capacity trolley" – a four-wheeled trolley, capable of holding up to 75kg of post.

Posties push the new trolleys on their rounds, and leave them on the kerbside between deliveries. They are fitted with bike locks, and the lid can be locked too.

Postmen with rounds more than a mile from a sorting office will travel in pairs in a van with a postman on a neighbouring round, where they will use lightweight trollies to carry their bags along the streets.

But the system has not been wholly welcomed by staff. John Pym, 42, who has been a Bristol postman for 26 years, said he had concerns for the security of mail left in the street during deliveries with "only a flimsy lock on the trolley".

Mr Pym, the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) representative at the Northern Delivery Office in Montpelier, also criticised the trolleys' manoeuvrability and controls.

"They are very difficult to push up a hill, and the brakes don't work very well," he said. "We often end up having to park them and carry post bags along the street as normal. It's all very well bringing in trollies for the sake of our upper backs, but it is at the expense of our lower backs."

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