POST OFFICE BLOCK

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 104, 26 January 1939, Page 16

POST OFFICE BLOCK

Additions To Palmerston North Building COMPLETED BY APRIL 1 )om inion , Special Service. PALMERSTON N., January 25. Good progress is being made with the building of additions to the chief post ofliee in Palmerston North, and the work will be completed by the end of April. Immediately the building is finished the savings bank branch will be transferred to the ground floor frontage and at the farthest corner along the main street will be opened a new postal box lobby in which is tQ be installed a new set of steel private boxes of the latest type. The present mailroom will be extended behind the new savings bank branch and the existing, postal box space will be converted exclusively for money order and general business. There will be a new entrance to the post ofliee from the side opposite the Square gardens and adjoining the Rosy Theatre block. This will open into the telegraph and toll department, which will replace the present savings bank branch. There eight telephone boxes will be provided instead of the present three. The present pareels counter on the main street frontage will be set back eight feet and continued round the corner to link up with the telegraph counter. The existing stamp counter will become the Customs and parcels section. Stamps and motor registration business will occupy what is the present money order section.

Though the alterations are extensive it ie understood that they may not mean any increase in the present post office staff, which numbers 134. Rearrangements in the present tjuilding will not be put in hand till the necessary departments have made the transfer to the new blocks. The upstairs frontage will be used for the chief postmaster’s room, the clerical staff, the telegraph engineer’s room and his staff. The telegraph transmitting and receiving department will be extended along the back of the first-floor frontage and the present space used for dispatch and stationery room, and the existing rooms for the postmaster and the clerical 6taff z will be used for staff retiring rooms.