The alarm has been raised among the citizens of the villages of Camaro Inferiore and Massa San Giorgio due to the decision by Poste Italiane to permanently close their respective post offices starting from 20 January 2025. The news is raising widespread concerns about the inconvenience that this measure will cause.
The communities involved, including Camaro San Luigi, Camaro San Paolo, Bisconte, Catarratti and the hamlets of Massa, will find themselves without an essential service which for years has represented not only a practical point of reference, but also a place of social and historical. According to city councilor Libero Gioveni, the forced transfer of users to the post offices of Camaro Superiore, Castanea or Spartà, and in some cases even to Villafranca Tirrena, will constitute a serious problem, especially for the elderly.
“The Superior Camaro Office – the councilor underlines – will not be able to handle the enormous influx of users coming from such a large pool, which includes thousands of citizens. The same goes for the populations of the hamlets of Massa, who will find themselves forced to travel kilometers to reach post offices in other areas”.
While acknowledging that the reasons for the closure may be justified by unspecified company needs, Gioveni expressed regret and requested urgent clarifications from Poste Italiane, hoping for a rethink or at least the adoption of compensatory measures in order to continue to guarantee the current levels of efficiency of the services and benefits to the public that the same offices have so far maintained for the benefit of several thousand Messina residents.
Poste Italiane’s response
Poste Italiane reassures citizens by informing them that the municipality of Messina will continue to be served by the presence of 99 post offices, of which 61 also have access by reservation, 68 Postamat ATMs and 87 Punto Poste.
Added to this coverage are the numerous opportunities deriving from the new way of offering products and services in post offices: the Home and Family Post Offices, the consultancy rooms and delivery extended to weekends too.
Poste Italiane, therefore, in accordance with the measures adopted by the regulatory authority Agcom, has prepared a plan to reorganize the postal network. A need that arises from the changing habits of citizens who increasingly use services and products on digital channels, so much so that today there are over twenty million daily interactions on online channels such as the poste.it website and company apps.
In Messina, therefore, the intervention on the two post offices of Camaro Inferiore and Massa San Giorgio represents over 90 which will continue to be regularly open and available. In particular, it should be noted that the post offices in the hamlets of Camaro, Messina 3, Messina 7, Castanea delle Furie and the municipality of Villafranca Tirrena, equipped with ATMs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, are between 2.5 and 4 kilometers from the two offices close to closing.
The presence in the territory and the capillarity of the network constitute a strategic activity of Poste Italiane, as demonstrated by the development of the Polis project which involves the sustainable and digital modernization of 7 thousand post offices in municipalities with less than 15 thousand inhabitants and the simultaneous supply of new Public Administration services. Polis in the province of Messina involves 105 post offices.
The Company ensures the clearest information to citizens on a daily basis through notices in post offices, the poste.it website and apps.