Petitioning Royal Mail!

[Leon]

Signed the petition.  I'd just change to a different carrier.  There are enough of them these days.

A lot of the couriers have similar restrictions in place, or they use Royal Mail at some stage of the delivery and would have to abide by RM's guidelines.  The ones that will ship the paints start at around £8-£10, which is just too much for a small package of 5 paints.

[Techno]

I've recently spoken to a few firms that sell paints as a sideline (while I've been ordering some bits and bobs from them, modelling wise......Don't worry...Not things you stock up there Leon. )

Most of them don't seem to be bothered that much at all....Which I've found a little strange.
Cheers - Phil

[Leon]

I've recently spoken to a few firms that sell paints as a sideline (while I've been ordering some bits and bobs from them, modelling wise......Don't worry...Not things you stock up there Leon. )

Most of them don't seem to be bothered that much at all....Which I've found a little strange.
Cheers - Phil

I think the lack of enforcement by Royal Mail has got a lot of people thinking 'Oh well, I'll just keep sending until they catch me..' which I can understand I suppose.  It'd be good to have their support anyway, even if they are still shipping the paints.

[Techno]

You're probably right there Leon, though one said they were already using couriers.....Which seems a tad expensive.
Are there any daily papers we know of that dislike the post office and would readily  have 'a pop' ?
Cheers - Phil.

[Leon]

You're probably right there Leon, though one said they were already using couriers.....Which seems a tad expensive.
Are there any daily papers we know of that dislike the post office and would readily  have 'a pop' ?
Cheers - Phil.

Possibly, newspapers and local MP's will be the next port of call, I've been waiting until we hit the 3000 signatures before launching the next stage.

[Hussargeneral]

Signed...first post as well...I think this is important.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Hello Hussargeneral

[Fenton]

Welcome

Does this mean Last Hussar has to change his forum name now?..

[fsn]

Welcome Mr General.

May I invite you to tell us more on the "Intros and Welcomes" section? 

We love to hear about a new member's doings.

[Techno]

Welcome to the forum Hussargeneral.
Cheers - Phil.

[Fenton]

Welcome Mr General.


We love to hear about a new member's doings.

I beg your pardon

[Leon]

As we mentioned previously, Royal Mail have changed the reasoning for these restrictions from 'Dangerous Goods' to 'potential damage to other mail', so we have now sent them a list of questions as a result:

"As a follow-up to our recent discussions on water-based paints, and the restrictions on them in your guidelines, I have a few more questions:-

1.  In our original discussions, the reason given for Parcel Force being able to ship these items was due to them having a Dangerous Goods license.  Now that we have determined that these items are not in fact 'Dangerous Goods', what is the new reason for Parcel Force being able to ship these paints, and how are they overcoming the same 'potential damage to other mail' reasoning which worries Royal Mail?

2.  Do you have any statistics which show the frequency of breakages/leakages in the mail, and more specifically, how many of these are caused by water-based paints?

3.  The restrictions allow the shipping of upto 1 litre of alcohol, does this not pose a greater risk of leakage / breakage than 4 small pots of paint, even more so when the alcohol is likely to be shipped in a single glass container?

Many thanks,

Leon Pengilley"

We will now have to wait and see what they reply with before proceeding.

In the meantime though, we still need to grow the support, and get this noticed on a national scale by the mainstream media.  To do this, we're asking you to help out by doing two things:

1. Write to your local MP, using the template which can be found on our new Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/PostOurPaint/posts/245576305607450 (modify it to suit if you wish).  A full list of UK MP's listed by their consituency can be found here: http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/?sort=1  If you get a response, please let us know on the Facebook page, or by email to me directly at leonpengilley@hotmail.com

2.  Write to any local newspapers or other media in your area to bring this to their attention as well.  The MP letter template linked above can be used for this as well, with only minor modification.

Also, please head over and join our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/PostOurPaint which allows us to keep everyone up to date with the latest news and discussions as we move forward with this.  You can also update here as you get responses from your local MP's / media.

Thanks for reading, and again, thank you for your support.  Please pass this update around your friends, forums and Facebooks, and we'll keep pushing to get these restrictions changed!  

PS, I hope everyone has a merry Christmas as well, there might not be many paints under your tree, but I hope there's something good in their place...!

Cheers!

[ronan]

a small step toward Victory ?

[Ithoriel]

Email sent to Mike Crockart who is not only my constituency MP but also on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee - auto-reply from him says he hopes to respond within two weeks, though I wouldn't hold him to that given the season of the year!

[SnM Stuff]

I've been following (and affected) by this for a while, but this is my first post here... please be gentle with me 

If we find Royal Mail starting to be less than forthcoming with information, I spoke with the FSB legal advice line today, and they confirmed that Royal Mail would still be obligated to respond to Freedom of Information Requests relating to any events prior to privatisation, as they were effectively a public body at that time.  They also advised that if this is confirmed to be a commercial decision by Royal Mail rather than a regulatory one, that if they followed through with their threats of prosecution, the only immediately obvious grounds would be breach of contract (although we didn't discuss whether this could be extended in the event of an actual incident).  In addition, if the currently unsubstantiated rumours are true, and Royal Mail are really sending confiscated parcels for auction rather than destruction, then they could potentially be exposed to litigation on the grounds of selling goods which are not their property.

I've been lobbying within the FSB for a while about this and other Royal Mail issues, although it is hard pushing it up their list of priorities when there are so many other things that are also on their radar.  As a member of their Surrey Policy Team, I was able to draw up a questionnaire on Royal Mail issues and get it sent out to Surrey & Sussex members, and I believe it's now been adopted and sent out in a variety of other regions as well.  Admittedly it was created before this issue arose, but hopefully it'll keep post issues on the FSB radar. 

Having written to Damian Collins MP (the Conservative Small Business Champion for the South East) about Royal Mail issues about 2 months ago and received no reply, I am less optimistic about political support - I guess the MP's all got free shares and lined up for nice cushy non-exec directorships

Leon - I included a link to your petition in the email newsletter I sent out this evening, so hopefully that'll add a few more signatures although it's a pleasure to see how many of my existing customers have already signed !

Hopefully that helps a little