The dissapearing Javea postmen

LONG term problems with Javea postal service came to a head when a group of Javea Montgo urbanisation residents requested help from local councillor Oscar Anton. At a meeting in Javea Port, representatives of the residents association told Anton that their delivery service is, “totally unreliable with unpredictable intermittent deliveries.”

They also state that the present mailbox site is situated in a known accident black spot adding safety problems to their non delivery woes and ask that an official communal box be installed.

Residents Sean Smith and Tom Stevenson told the EWN that when they complained, Javea Post Office informed them that the problem was due to staff shortage, which as Councillor Anton pointed was a strange statement considering Spain has almost 5 million unemployed, many of which, in his opinion, would jump at the chance of a becoming a ‘Cartero.’

He also informed the residents that there are minimum legal standards controlling mail deliveries in Spain and added that he would take up the case immediately with the Correos to ensure they complied with the Law of the land.

An intolerable situation summed up by a senior Montgo resident who told the meeting, “When we lived in a remote rural area of Southern Ireland where even in the worst of weather, we still received daily deliveries of mail – how come in the 21st century we can’t even get minimum service?”

This is not a new or unique situation affecting the Costas, as many other towns have experienced similar problems over the years, especially in outlaying urbanizations.

In 2006, an official complaint was presented to the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament by the then Javea town Councillor for public services, Tony Cabban. The complaint stated that the Postal Service was in total chaos with little or no deliveries.

This resulted in long queues being formed at the town’s only post office, where undelivered mail had been piled in various boxes with signs requesting the public to find their own mail without any form of supervision or identity checks.

The situation peaked during the 2006 Christmas period when many families lost money and valuable items sent through the mail as Christmas presents from relatives abroad.

By Benny Davis