WWYD - Royal Mail 'safe place' for parcels--part-open porch (photo)

[likewhatyoudo]

I’m trying to sort out parcel deliveries from Royal Mail when I’m not at home. We have a part-open porch in regular suburbia. Although I consider it fine, and many other couriers do too, Royal Mail won’t treat it as a ‘safe place’. They say the porch has to be enclosed.
I’ve seen proper lockable parcel boxes online but they’re quite expensive. I was wondering about just getting one of those garden storage boxes and leaving it in the porch with a note asking the postie to put parcels inside. Maybe even leaving a padlock nearby so the postie can secure it?
But then I’m not sure:
Would this solve the problem with Royal Mail?
Would delivery drivers use the padlock, or is that a waste of time?
What do others do in this situation?
(btw, it’s not my house in the photo , but it gives you the general idea)
Thanks

Just get a parcel box for the porch
We have one i hate it but I hate missing deliveries more.

That's weird because they'll leave things in my porch and it's more open than yours. However, I'm at the end of a cul de sac, are you on a busy road?

RM leave parcels in a much more exposed front door area at mine.

In my experience royal mail delivery workers don't pay the slightest bit of attention to requests about where to put mail or what days to deliver it.

Im amazed they won't leave them.

Despite me informing them via the app that my front garden is not a safe place, they still leave parcels there. Which nearly always get stolen. So now I get things delivered to my mums house instead. Pisses me right off.

Amazing how many different experiences!

do you mean the parcel boxes £100+?

Or would a garden box with a lid be ok?

We bought a parcel box which frequently was ignored despite it being just below the doorbell. We even had a sticker on it stating parcel box . Most delivery people do put my parcels in it but we get the ones that also don’t understand how it works. Money well spent and now I don’t worry about stuff getting wet.

We have a garden box. It was about £35 from Argos. The posties love it!

I have a planter by my door and packages are put behind it. Occasionally they put it behind my bins (I have instructed any courier and RM to put it behind the planter but they sometimes still do that).

I think it has to be out of sight from opportunists so an opaque garden box type thing would be fine. I use a lidded bin.

Lidded garden box is acceptable here. My postman said it had to be covered. Also make sure you appoint it as a Safe Place on the website.

My postman leaves Special Deliveries in mine for me, as he knows that's my preference. He only knocks for Age Verification deliveries which are few and far between.

(Rural location, Ring cameras, dogs, out of sight of the road, almost always home, so very little risk of theft.)

We have a porch like that and RM generally leave stuff behind the bins up the driveway not in the porch

Apparently though if you state a safe place and it gets pinched then the store needn't refund or replace so it's best not to state a safe place because you are accepting responsibility if you do

My door is directly on the street and they leave mine on the floor outside 😂

My door is directly on the street and they leave mine on the floor outside 😂

I have the combo £100 box its vile. The combo is sticky and its so low down.l

I wish we had a garden box with lid ... which should be acceptable given its not visible from the road.

One very enterprising postie once left a parcel stuffed inside the traffic cone we use to keep our car parking space free. Much appreciated at the time.

Worth trying the garden box.

This has got to be a wind up post surely 😂😂 I’d put a traffic cone on top of the nearest statue

My porch is open, and we're on a really busy road but RM are happy to leave parcels in it.

In my experience, RM ignore any instructions about where to leave parcels and any instructions about changing delivery dates.

Although thinking about it, our porch is so full of crap (wellies, walking boots, garden chairs, chopped firewood, big crate full of bottles and jars to go to the bottle bank as the sodding council still haven't got round to starting glass collection from residential properties) that a parcel isn't necessarily that obvious to passers by!

thanks for all the pointers. We'll try a garden box, but I'm not holding out much hope!

My dd gets them to leave parcels behind the dustbin on their drive. Touch wood it’s worked fine so far.

Any box should be fine, if you're accepting the risk of an open porch you don't need to fork out for a sturdy lockable one.