WEAVER Vale MP Mike Amesbury has written to the Department for Business and Trade after Royal Mail slashed public opening hours at many delivery offices.
The company reduced opening times at half its customer service points last month including those at Runcorn and Northwich delivery offices.
Many are now typically only operating between 8am to 10am on weekdays, while on Saturday they open from 8am to 12pm.
The change has already taken place at Frodsham delivery office.
Mr Amesbury said: “These changes represent a massive cut in the previous opening hours, potentially inconveniencing domestic and business customers who use the service for both sending post and packages and collecting missed parcels as well as online shopping returns.
“In addition, the timeslots now available are inconvenient for people who don’t work from home. It feels like a cynical attempt to undermine the service to eventually justify closing it altogether.
“This is about forcing everyone to make arrangements online through an app but not everyone is able to embrace the digital age, including some pensioners. Yet again we see the human touch disappearing because of corporate greed.”
Mr Amesbury, who has raised concerns with business minister Kevin Hollinrake is also worried about the impact on affected postal workers. In some cases, staff have moved across to work in an office environment for health reasons.
The MP added: “My suspicion is ‘new work practices’ started to come in during the pandemic as an excuse to run down the numbers of workers. You can see the effect on the reliability of the postal service in general.
“The price of stamps continues to go up but parcels are prioritised over letters and we see delays in the delivery of everyday mail through no fault of hardworking postal staff.”