Mackay community petitions for mail service

A Pioneer Valley business owner has launched a petition to bring mail delivery back to her community after the local convenience store’s closure forced residents to travel up to 20 minutes to get their deliveries. DETAILS.

The community of Eton lost it’s local post office after the Five Star Handy Market convenience store shut down, Dearne Abela of a local BBQ business wants to change that.

A Pioneer Valley community has launched a petition to bring back mail deliveries after six months of commuting for their mail.

The community of Eton lost its post office after the Five Star Handy Market convenience store, which also hosted a post service, shut down.

Eton business owner Dearne Abela said that that store had been “around as long as I could remember”, but when the owners could not find a family to pick up the torch, they unfortunately had to close their doors.

“We don’t have any mail delivery,” Mrs Abela said.

“It all goes to Marian or Walkerston.”

Bears BBQ does catering for events and specialises in Texas style BBQ.

Mrs Abela runs a catering company called Bears BBQ and claims that since losing local mail delivery she’s experienced difficulties running her business.

It’s not just delays for business deliveries that concern Mrs Abela, but also the delivery of their general mail.

“My local barcode election card never arrived in the mail,” Mrs Abela said.

“It turned up about two weeks ago.”

Dearne Abela and her husband run Bears BBQ from the home in Eton.

Also delayed were certificates regarding Mrs Abela’s son’s vaccinations, which arrived three months after they were supposed to.

“Thankfully it was a clerical error, but had it been serious, I was finding out three months late,” she said.

“If it had happened to someone else it could be serious.”

Some residents like Kathryn Miller-Wedel have opened PO boxes at the post office in Marian roughly 15 minutes up the road, however she still ends up travelling to Walkerston.

“Anytime our physical address is put down for letters or parcels, we have to collect them from Walkerston,” Mrs Miller-Wedel said in a comment on Facebook.

Mrs Abela, after consulting with Australia Post, has started a petition on change.org to raise support among the Eton community for the revival of mail delivery.

An Australia Post spokesperson said, “If there’s widespread support to change … we’ll run a mail poll where everyone in the community can have their say”.

“If more than 50 per cent of residents vote for the change … we’ll take steps to change mail delivery arrangements as required.”

If you are a resident of Eton and would like to support Mrs Abela’s petition you can do so here.

Originally published as Mackay community petitions for mail service