Customer Service Points are indeed valued by people here in Cheltenham, and I am sympathetic to the points that have been raised.
The context is that under the Postal Services Act 2011 Royal Mail is a private organisation and it is the responsibility of the independent postal services regulator Ofcom to ensure that the company carries out its functions properly.
Ofcom does not, however, handle individual complaints, and advises that complaints about Royal Mail should be addressed in the first instance to the company directly. In the event the complaint concerns Royal Mail’s regulated postal services and the company cannot provide a resolution, it can issue a ‘deadlock' notice that will allow the customer to ask the Independent Postal Redress scheme to investigate the case. Ofcom continues to scrutinise Royal Mail's performance closely.
You can read more about the scheme here: Postal services | Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)
On Customer Service Points specifically, as you may be aware, in November Royal Mail announced a review of their 1,200 Customer Service Points to determine the optimum number of locations following a 50 per cent drop in footfall since the pandemic.
After completing the first stage of the review, and considering a range of options, Royal Mail has decided to maintain the current estate of Customer Service Points as they seek to further improve their first-time delivery rates.
Following successful trials, Royal Mail will additionally roll out automatic next-day redeliveries for missed parcels in the coming months. This is designed to make it even easier for customers to receive parcels at home, without the need to travel to a Customer Service Point.
This initiative builds on the introduction of a range of alternative delivery options for greater convenience in recent years, including free redelivery, delivery to a neighbour, the option to leave parcels in a Safeplace and inflight redirections through the Royal Mail App.
As footfall continues to decrease, the next stage of this review will focus on ensuring that Customer Service Point opening hours match customer demand. Nevertheless, I will pass on your concerns to my colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade.