Dumped Royal Mail bags found in Watford (From Watford Observer)
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Dumped Royal Mail bags found in Watford
7:30am Sunday 9th November 2008 in News By John Harrison
Royal Mail bags found dumped.
ROYAL MAIL and an international publishing company are to investigate how dozens of sacks stuffed with undelivered mail ended up dumped in two remote locations in Watford.
Staff at Majestic Wine, in Otterspool Way, contacted police after 37 post bags stuffed full of undelivered mail were found dumped in the warehouse’s car park last Friday morning.
Royal Mail staff were then called to the scene to collect the rain-sodden bags.
The sacks contained hundreds of undelivered letters stamped with a PO Box address in Bushey, belonging to Condé Nast, publishers of glossy magazines Vanity Fair, GQ and Vogue.
The incident came two days after the Watford Observer was called to investigate a further 15 bags filled with similar letters.
A walker stumbled across the second pile of bags dumped half-a-mile up Otterspool Lane, a quiet country road that is almost impossible to drive up.
Again, the bags contained mail shots with the same Bushey PO Box address for Condé Nast.
All the mail dated back to September 2007 – the height of the Post Office crisis that crippled services in and around Watford.
Speaking on behalf of Condé Nast, Harriet Robertson, said a thorough investigation would now be conducted.
She said: “Condé Nast is extremely disturbed by this situation and we are investigating fully with all parties involved.”
Hayley Fowell, external relations manager for Royal Mail Group, the company believed the bags had been dumped by a third party, likely to have been called to collect the returned items.
Ms Fowell said: “Royal Mail has recovered around 20 bags of mail found dumped in Otterspool Way in Watford.
“The mailsort items were all for one firm’s address in Bushey and had previously been returned by Royal Mail to that address for disposal.
“According to investigations by Royal Mail and the firm concerned, the items appear to have been disposed of by a third party.”
Comments(13)
Watford_Chick
says...
9:28am Sun 9 Nov 08
we have a bad postal service as it is!!
Maybe employing more people that can speak and read english might help!!
kittencat
says...
9:46am Sun 9 Nov 08
John Howard Norfolk
says...
1:52pm Sun 9 Nov 08
Whatever is happening to society?
Tudor247
says...
7:40pm Sun 9 Nov 08
Paradise Watford
says...
10:54am Mon 10 Nov 08
Its not as if they were hidden and were bound to be found - what did they think would happen when they were.
Its a disgrace and I agree the PO has really gone down hill the past 10 years or so. I used to get the first post delivered before I left for work way back when.
On the other hand, when you think about it its still an amazingly cheap way to send a letter accross the country or even the world!
crazyfrog
says...
11:15am Mon 10 Nov 08
andyandyandy
says...
12:09pm Mon 10 Nov 08
John Howard Norfolk
says...
2:10pm Wed 12 Nov 08
The fact that Royal Mail staff were called to retrieve these bags suggests that I and the other posters have interpreted the story correctly.
Perhaps it was a bulk meter-post mail shot by the company and "someone" at the sorting office didn't fancy the job of distributing it so it was dumped while still in the bags?
Whilst I cannot condone littering, at least a few thousand households were saved the trouble of reading and binning unwanted mailshots. The shame is that the person who dumped it all didnt think to take it all for recycling.
andyandyandy
says...
11:48am Wed 27 Oct 10
Of course the royal mail would come to collect any items presumed dumped as it was in mail bags. However if you read the story properly and are not an idiot like some of the posters in here. You'll see what happened.
This was a mailshot sent out to thousands of addresses. Some would be undeliverable and is then returned to the sender. The firm in bushey. They have then paid someone to despose of their 'rubbish' it was however they paid to get rid of it that dumped it. Royal Mail did their job and are if no blame what so ever. Is that so difficult to understand???
reality-bites
says...
12:23pm Wed 27 Oct 10
When privatisation is pushed through we will get even more cheap foreign labour and even more dumped mail!
andyandyandy
says...
4:35pm Wed 27 Oct 10
andyandyandy
says...
4:41pm Wed 27 Oct 10
And again once more for the morons posting on this story this was NOT DUMPED BY ROYAL MAIL!
reality-bites
says...
8:09pm Wed 27 Oct 10
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