Fox Glacier residents are fighting to keep vital postal services in the town.
For the past three months, they have had to travel 23km over the hills to Franz Josef Glacier to access basic postal services after the town's last New Zealand Post agent relinquished its contract.
Now incoming courier items are also causing a headache.
In a letter to Fox Glacier residents last month, NZ Post advised they could also face a return trip to Franz to collect larger courier items if a new postal service agent could not be found.
Until September 1, Fox Glacier Guiding had provided postal services for the town.
However, when it relinquished the contract on September 1 all services were lost, except private mail boxes, which were relocated into the High Peaks Hotel.
A NZ Post spokesman said this week that over a number of months many local businesses and the community association had been approached on the best way to provide the services, but without success.
Currently, people could collect their mail and parcels at their post office boxes at the High Peaks Hotel. NZ Post was now exploring alternative solutions, such as lockers for parcels that were either too large for the postal boxes or required a signature to be collected.
"There is no change to the services offered by the hotel, for these types of items while we do this," the spokesman said.
The company welcomed discussions with local businesses to provide postal services on its behalf as part of their existing business.
"In the context of declining letter volumes, this model helps NZ Post remain a sustainable business and also provides the local business with the benefit of additional customer foot traffic."
However, Fox Community Development Society chairwoman Carrol Browne said NZ Post's business model did not work for Fox Glacier.
Businesses could not cope with the additional foot traffic, especially in the peak season when they were so busy already.
"Businesses are so busy and they are so short of space that they can't take on the agency - they haven't got the time, space or staff."
Mrs Browne said the committee had looked at ways of providing a daily service and had proposed to NZ Post a dedicated space, such as a portacom based at the community centre, which could be manned by the community development officer, who would be contracted by NZ Post.
Mrs Browne said as they would need to borrow money to buy the premises, they needed assurance from NZ Post that it would continue to provide an accommodation allowance for the life of the loan.
However, it declined and had not been willing to compromise on its "business model".
"NZ Post has to reconsider that some of the places in New Zealand, like Fox which is under pressure from tourism, the model is not going to work," Mrs Browne said.
Downgrading, or losing such vital services would have a negative flow-on effect in the small community, from the attraction and retention of staff to the health of the local Fox Glacier School.
"Losing something as important as a postal agency is really big."
A meeting is proposed at Fox Glacier between the parties and Mayor Bruce Smith, who has called on NZ Post to meet their objectives "without nonsense" and join with the community in a partnership solution.
"Our Fox Glacier community have turned over every stone to ensure both residents and the 5000 visitors a day at the season peak can post a letter or pick up a parcel.
"Why does the State-owned-enterprise NZ Post have to try and swim up the rapids, shrinking essential services in hot tourist spots while the Government works to improve essential services in the same places?"
Earlier this year NZ Post had to apologise to Fox Glacier residents for a two-week backlog of about 200 items of undelivered mail.
Residents were told the blunder was due to a "breakdown in communication" with the local courier not being told it was their responsibility to clear the box daily.
Fox Glacier resident Peter Halford said currently there was no way of getting stamps, or postal bags and envelopes in the town.
"If we want to post anything we have to go to Franz Josef, which is just ridiculous. It's not as if it's a one-horse town - there are thousands of people here during the season."
NZ Post said it "acknowledged and appreciated" that postal services were valued by the Fox Glacier community.
"We would very much welcome discussions with local businesses to provide postal services on our behalf as part of their existing business."
