Bicycle postal service comes to Filwood

By Community Reporter Johnny Dadds

A bicycle postal service is available in Knowle West  – offering a green and cheaper way of sending your mail.

With post boxes in several locations in the city, including inside re:store shop on Filwood Broadway – Velopost uses pedal-power to collect and deliver post locally.

Senior Sales Executive at Velopost Jeremy Field explains:  “It’s all very environmentally friendly… it also makes it cheaper as well. Just by the virtue of it being by bike; we don’t have any fossil fuel costs.”

This means that post can be sent for 49p – 5p less than a Royal Mail Second Class stamp. This standard delivery service takes two to three days and mail is delivered across Bristol by bicycle to postcodes BS1 – BS16 and to Bath using an electric vehicle. Stamps can be ordered directly from Velopost or are available to buy in the re:store shop.

There has been a Velopost post box located in re:store, which is part of the charity re:work, since just before Christmas.

“We wanted to give people a chance to send their Christmas cards for a cheaper rate and to get to know the service as well,” Jeremy told The Knowledge.

Chief Executive of re:work, Vicky Beckwith says: “We love Velopost – they are local, environmentally friendly and they save us money. We are very excited about being able to enable the customers of our charity shop, re:store, to access their service.”

And re:work Office Manager Jane Smallcombe says: “I used it for all my Christmas cards. It saved me a bit of money. When it first became available someone drove from Brislington to use it…”

Velopost has been collecting and delivering letters in Bristol since 2011. It has five other post boxes in the city, including one in the Tourist Information Centre and another in 50 Cycles in the city centre. For more information visit www.velopost.co.uk