Belgian Post has unveiled a major restructuring of its postal network as part of its ongoing
Its 46 “Points Poste” agencies, offering basic postal services, will rise to 170 this year.Belgian Post said that customer satisfaction with these outlets operated by partners was very high,and new outlets would be opened in the summer. Belgian Post gave no figures on planned post officeclosures but pledged that a nearby agency would always be opened prior to the closure of a postoffice.
Meanwhile, the core postal network of 1,300 post offices will be re-structured into a “star”structure comprising 166 regional “stars” covering a district or region and under coordinatedmanagement from June 6. More than 630 large post offices will open on Saturday mornings from June 6onwards while 600 smaller offices will have shorter opening hours. The postal company said it wouldalso tackle post office waiting times.
The postal operator added that the number of letter-boxes would be reduced to 14,000, whichwould still leave it with Europe’s fourth-largest network in terms of letter-boxes per squarekilometre behind the Netherlands, UK and Malta.
Johnny Thijs, Belgian Post CEO, commented: “By changing our opening times we are crossinganother threshold in the reorganisation of our retail network. The creation of additional newpostal shops from this summer will be the following stage. The postal shops are important for ournetwork since they compensate for the regrouping of smaller post offices.”
