That arrangement will end on June 1 this year.<\/p>\n
Jack’s Point and Hanley’s Farm, about 6km from Queenstown Central, have never had a mail service. Photo \/ QLDC<\/p>\n
NZ Post general manager of service delivery Matt Riordan said the company had provided 840 free PO Boxes for several years while working with developers on a permanent solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we\u2019ve worked hard to explore options such as clustered or centralised letterboxes in these areas, a permanent mail delivery solution hasn\u2019t been able to be agreed with the developers, and it\u2019s not sustainable for us to continue the temporary free PO Box service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residents who wish to retain a PO Box will now need to pay $210 a year.<\/p>\n
Riordan said NZ Post remained open to introducing standard mail services, such as centrally located communal letterboxes, but this would require developers\u2019 approval and new infrastructure.<\/p>\n
One Hanley\u2019s Farm resident says the lack of a reliable postal service has already had serious consequences.<\/p>\n
The single mother of premature twin girls, Claire \u2013 who did not wish to give her surname \u2013 said she missed an important hospital appointment after a letter was sent to her residential address instead of her PO Box.<\/p>\n
One of her daughters required a follow-up brain scan after an anomaly was detected while she was in neonatal intensive care.<\/p>\n
\u201cI chased it up and they said the appointment was the next day, in Invercargill,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The letter never arrived.<\/p>\n
Jack’s Point under the mountain range. Photo \/ Darby Partners<\/p>\n
Unable to reschedule for months, Claire had to make an urgent early-morning trip south with her infant daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite a stressful time. We just had to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claire has had a PO Box for about three years, but because none were available in Frankton, she was forced to rent one in central Queenstown – up to an hour-long round trip from Hanley\u2019s farm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really frustrating. We just need a service out here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another resident, who asked not to be named, said the lack of postal delivery had caused repeated headaches.<\/p>\n
After moving to Jack\u2019s Point last year, a replacement debit card went missing, forcing the resident and their partner to pay a rural courier fee to receive another.<\/p>\n
A parking infringement notice also failed to arrive, resulting in the fine being referred to the Ministry of Justice and more than $100 in additional penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was dumbfounded,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Since Jack\u2019s Point was established in the mid-2000\u2019s and Hanley\u2019s Farm in the late 2010\u2019s, NZ Post has provided free PO Boxes as a temporary workaround. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
Even routine tasks such as renewing a vehicle registration had become complicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you take a quick walk around Hanley\u2019s Farm and Jack\u2019s Point, you\u2019ll notice a lot of cars with expired registrations.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said paying hundreds of dollars for a PO Box felt unfair when postal delivery remained a free service for most New Zealanders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes such a beautiful place to live, an exhausting place to live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Queenstown Lakes District Council planning and development general manager Dave Wallace said postal services were not a council function and were not directly regulated through the district plan or subdivision consenting process.<\/p>\n
\u201cDecisions regarding residential mail delivery models sit with NZ Post as a Crown-owned entity.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Wallace said the council had advocated on behalf of residents and had encouraged developers of future subdivisions to engage with NZ Post early in the design process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be preferable that all communities are able to access NZ Post services.\u201d<\/p>\n
Southland MP Joseph Mooney said he had spent years trying to broker a solution, including meetings with NZ Post executives and local developers.<\/p>\n
The problem, he said, was that the subdivisions had been built without postal infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to reverse engineer that seems to be quite challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mooney has also recently written to Queenstown Lakes District Council and Health New Zealand, asking whether residents could opt in to receive important notices such as parking infringements and medical appointments by email instead of post.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere still are things that people need to get delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the issue highlighted the need for postal services to be considered earlier in the planning of new developments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit frustrating that this wasn\u2019t picked up during the design and consenting process.\u201d<\/p>\n
NZ Post said mail delivery to new residential developments in rural and urban fringe areas was now typically centralised through communal letterboxes, reflecting declining mail volumes and growing parcel demand.<\/p>\n
The company urged developers to work with it early to establish sustainable delivery solutions as communities grew.<\/p>\n
Ben Tomsett is a multimedia journalist based in Dunedin. He joined the Herald. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That arrangement will end on June 1 this year. Jack’s Point and Hanley’s Farm, about 6km from Queenstown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20299,20391,18296,87228,31143,127,143056,50496,4975,6800,10053,5268,17070,23561,1132,20066,111,43,139,69,9061,215017,12937,20930,114732,7565,62592,530,2552,2249,6100,21047,165,61,45433,6041,1339],"class_list":["post-418532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-20299","tag-20391","tag-box","tag-cannot","tag-delivery","tag-despite","tag-exceeding","tag-fastestgrowing","tag-free","tag-homes","tag-house","tag-lose","tag-mail","tag-median","tag-million","tag-milliondollar","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-often","tag-po","tag-prices","tag-queenstown","tag-queenstowns","tag-receive","tag-rents","tag-residents","tag-service","tag-soon","tag-still","tag-suburbs","tag-their","tag-to","tag-topping","tag-weekly","tag-without"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}