LTB 083/2021 – ‘Gateway’ Development, Bexhill-on Sea – CWU Low Level Letter Box Campaign Victory For Postal Worker Members
No. 083/2021
1 March 2021
Our Ref: C32/21
To: All Branches
Dear Colleagues,
‘Gateway’ Development, Bexhill-on Sea – CWU Low Level Letter Box Campaign Victory For Postal Worker Members:
This is an update for postal branches further to LTBs 582/16, 82/18, 55/19, 98/19 and 142/19.
As Branches will know, the ‘Low Level Letter Box Campaign’ was re-launched in 2018 and also branches will be aware that alongside our ‘Bite-Back’ Dangerous Dogs Campaign, we continue campaigning on these two other big issues for postal worker members.
CWU Conference in 2018 carried two motions, one in General Conference and one in Postal Conference to re-launch the Low Level Letterbox Campaign and this, the Health, Safety & Environment Department has been doing both nationally and locally, working with a number of ASRs around the country in particular to deal with many local issues with regard to a number of big housing developments and housing estate refurbishments in which the Union has had a number of notable successes in getting house builders to cease fitting low level letter boxes and replace front doors with mid-level or waist-height letter boxes. The Union has won the support of a number of local authorities, councillors and MPs.
The most recent of these was the huge, 250 home ‘Gateway’ Development in Bexhill-On-Sea where campaigning and pressurising the Builders ‘Bovis Homes’ with the support of the branch, local authority, councillors, MPs and media won the day. Not only did the fitting of low level letter boxes stop at ’Gateway’ Bexhill-On-Sea, the developer, Bovis Homes, one of the UK’s largest house builders has agreed to cease fitting low level letter box front doors across all its developments, nation-wide in the UK. We are delighted with this and are now moving on to use that example with all other major developers and UK house builders as the country continues along the path of the biggest ever national house building programme the UK has ever seen with 2,500,000 homes built in the last decade.
The key objective is to get the law changed in order to outlaw low level letter boxes and achieve Building Regulations which require the fitting of mid-height letter boxes to all new homes and refurbishments.
In 2019 our campaign across the House of Commons built up a great momentum, with support being received and communicated from all political parties. A ‘Private Member’s Ten Minute Rule Bill’ was heard in a packed House of Commons on 16 January 2019 in front of 600 MPs just after midday following Prime Minister’s Question Time and before the major ‘BREXIT’ debate. The Bill received unanimous support and was subsequently withdrawn after the Government gave an undertaking to accept the intention of the Bill and to incorporate a change in the Government’s Building Regulations review. Further meetings took place with politicians in the House of Commons and Housing Minister of the day Kit Malthouse gave a positive indication of support for our campaign. However, despite a number of assurances and positive responses to enquiries, the change has not yet taken place – so our campaign continues within the Houses of Parliament to take the campaign forward where in 2019 a huge level of correspondence and welcomed support from MPs was received.
Yours sincerely
Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer