BOYS and girls on a Gloucester street are hoping Father Christmas will come tomorrow despite them being unable to post letters to him after their postbox was taken away.
Families on Fox Elms Road, Tuffley, were left astounded when their century-old postbox was removed by Royal Mail bosses, days before Christmas Day.
Mum Lorraine Campbell, who has lived on the street for 43 years, remembers being a six-year-old girl posting her letter to Father Christmas.
"The postbox served around 150 houses and was in a really handy location for many of the streets around here," said Lorraine. "So we couldn't believe it when they took it away completely.
"From a historical point of view, it's been here for more than 100 years and should remain. But also from a practical point of view, some of our older residents are going to have to walk much further when they had a perfectly good postbox on this street."
The box had stood in the grounds of what was once a post office. That later became a butcher's and recently converted into a house.
The owner requested the postbox be moved further down the road – but the Royal Mail took it away completely.
Now there's no chance of it ever coming back.
Adrian Booth, a spokesman for Royal Mail, said: "The postbox in Fox Elms Road was removed at the request of the owner of the property. When considering whether to re-site a postbox, we look at local postbox provision.
"In this case, the area is well served by postboxes, including one at Woods Orchard Close and another on St Barnabas roundabout, which are both a short distance away.
"As the box regularly contained only a handful of letters a week, we have no current plans to replace it."
Children's 'help us' letter: THE postbox at the end of our road has DISAPPEARED and now we have nowhere within safe walking distance to post our letters to you for Christmas! There used to be a butcher's shop on the corner but the man has now made it into a house, so he asked Royal Mail to move the box to another place only a few yards away – but instead, they took the box away and say they won't bring it back, because "not enough" people will miss it or complain.we DO miss it, Santa! All our mums and dads and grandparents are REALLY UPSET about it – especially as they weren't TOLD it was going to happen! We are so sad that we cannot post our letters there any more. Of course we can't actually POST this to you now, Santa, so we've asked the nice people at The Citizen to pass this on to you for us. We hope it reaches you, and that perhaps your elves and helpers can do something to get our postbox BACK! This would be the BEST Christmas present EVER! With Thanks and warmest wishes,, hopefully,children of Fox Elms Road, Tuffley