Royal Mail is rolling out a major redesign of its iconic red pillar postboxes — the first in 175 years — adding solar panels and compartments for larger parcels.

Each postbox is equipped with south-facing solar panels that power a barcode scanner, which unlocks a drawer sized to hold packages like a shoebox. Traditional slots for letters remain alongside the new parcel compartments.

By the end of 2025, 3,500 postboxes will be installed across the UK. After successful tests in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire in April, new postboxes will appear in cities including Edinburgh, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield, and Sunderland, before expanding nationwide. Royal Mail calls them the “postboxes of the future.”

The update aims to make sending parcels easier and to compete with locker-based delivery services such as inPost and Yodel.

Red pillar postboxes first appeared in the UK in 1853 and have since become a beloved symbol of British streets.