By Brendan Rees
Cranbourne East has received an early Christmas present – a new postbox.
Santa will be able to receive Christmas lists in time after the postbox was unveiled at the Hunt Club Village Shopping Centre just in time for the festive season.
Community members are delighted to finally have the new box, which was ready for use on Saturday 11 November, after months of campaigning.
Hunt Club estate resident Helen Bell, who had begun mailing her letters using the postbox, gathered 200 signatures in petitioning for the new facility.
She said: “I know a lot of things are done online now, but you need a letterbox for mailing personal letters so it really is good for the whole community.”
“It was such a pain because we didn’t have anywhere close for posting letters.”
Ms Bell said the community was “thrilled” and the postbox was now in walking distance for residents at the Hunters Green Retirement Village.
“It’s fantastic. They took away the one in Hotham Street that we used to have and then we had to either go right down to Thompson Park Way or Cranbourne shops.”
She said it was “worth my hounding around the footpaths” to gather support for the postbox.
“Hopefully it’ll bring more people to the shopping centre.”
“I’ve had on Facebook quite a few people say ‘Hey, we’ve got a postbox up there, hooray!’ so I did put a thing up, I petitioned for that and everyone is saying ‘Congratulations, good work’ and I thought ‘Oh well, people are pleased about that’.”
Cr Amanda Stapledon said the long-awaited postbox was a “fantastic outcome.”
“This is real cause for celebration. It’s going to be fantastic for Christmas. It’s great for families. It makes sense to have a letterbox at a shopping centre.”
A spokesperson from Australia Post said: “Our customers in Cranbourne East can now send their Christmas cards and gifts to family and friends from the new street posting box.”
