From Brendan McDonald.
ON 8 May this year, Jersey Post introduced size based pricing for postal items to comply with the Royal Mail and other jurisdictions.

We understand that Jersey Post had no choice but to go along with this new arrangement. But as far as I am concerned it is completely unnecessary for local mail and it will cause untold confusion and chaos at Christmas.

The Daily Mail reported that Royal Mail have ‘raked in over £2 million in surcharges from the unsuspecting public’. The normal practice at Christmas with most people is to go to your nearest post office and buy the stamps that you require for the local, UK and overseas Christmas cards, stick the stamps on the appropriate cards and put them in the nearest post box.

If, by chance, you put the normal postage on a Christmas card to your husband, wife or grandchildren and forget to measure them with your cardboard measure, the result will be that the postman of post lady will be knocking at your door asking you to pay an 80p surcharge.

I foresee a nightmare situation for the postmen and women who will be at the sharp end trying to collect surcharges. It will put hours of extra work onto their duties. When choosing cards for their nearest and dearest, whether it is birthdays or Christmas, invariably they will choose a large card. It must be remembered that although it may only weigh up to 100g, if it measures over 240 mm it will cost you 54p local rather than 36p.

The moral of the story is remember to buy small cards this Christmas. Unless Jersey Post show some consideration to their customers and waive this silly size based pricing, because it is not fair to apply it to local posting. I would hope that some of our politicians will arrange to meet the management at Jersey Post and convince them to waive this size based pricing at Christmas at least and show a bit of seasonal goodwill.