Ending a 120 year tradition, New Zealand Post will be closing its Raglan ‘Postshop’ in mid-February 2014, 120 years after the first standalone Post Office was opened in Bow St. NZ Post has confirmed that the rumour currently circulating in Raglan about the closure is correct. Postal services are expected to continue but be provided by a local retailer. But it appears that the rumour about a postal counter being sited in the new liquor shop currently being renovated is false as NZ Post told Raglan 23, “The retailer we are talking with is not the store you asked about.”
Provision of postal services at a counter in a retail store, sees Raglan reverting to 19th century pioneering days when the Gilmour General Store had a postal counter as one of its many services. The mid-February closure date for the Postshop lines up with the expected completion date for the new Four Square building so perhaps Raglan will have a postal counter in a general store once more.
The suspicions about NZ Post planned cutbacks came about when John Lawson noticed a secret public excluded item on a Waikato District Council agenda of a meeting held on 17th September headed, “Raglan- NZ Post”. This item did not make it onto the following Raglan Community Board meeting.
A New Zealand Post spokesperson told Raglan 23, “I can confirm that New Zealand Post is moving out of the Raglan Postshop site in February 2014 because the building it is currently in does not meet our seismic standards. We learned of the seismic issues in January this year and since then we have tried unsuccessfully to secure a new site for the PostShop.
New Zealand Post is committed to maintaining postal and banking services in Raglan and we are talking with a retail business in the town about taking over the hosting of our postal and banking services. We hope to be able to say something publicly soon. I can confirm that the retailer we are talking with is not the store you asked about. We informed staff last Wednesday and are talking with them about future options.”
NZ Post has recently been criticised by business commentators for lacking a postal growth strategy and placing too much emphasis on Kiwibank. Comparisons have been made to Deutsch Post and Royal Mail as businesses that are successfully growing their postal businesses. This Raglan cutback appears to be another example confirming what the commentators are saying.
So we can expect all the buildings in Bow Street, the same age as the post office, to be emptied due to seismic worries?
Bow St is an area of thixotropic soils which would turn into a liquid in an earthquake. Building owners in Bow St with possible issues have been notified by Waikato District Council. From what I know, the Town Hall has recently been assessed against the new earthquake code and is OK. The Council Office/ Library is OK subject to some small reinforcement work being done. This work is programmed. For each building it seems to be up to the owners to decide when they will do something. NZ Post using seismic concerns to vacate their premises is just a plausible reason for them to give.
Funny the buildings that kill are modern not the historical
A little historic note, our Post Shop, as we now know it, was owned and operated by NZ Post in it’s current building site, then in March 1997 it was franchised off and operated by the new franchise owner. When that franchise owner ceased business, NZ Post took over the running of our Postshop again. What is about to happen is that it is again to be operated by a new franchise owner. The services to our town should remain as they are except that you will go to a different building and be served by different people. Life is full of changes that we don’t necessarily like or agree with but changes do happen and life goes on.
Thanks for refeshing people on the recent history.