KEY POINTS:
Auckland City's weekly newsletter, City Scene, is being delivered to letterboxes wrapped in junk mail, despite a council edict not to do so.
Reachmedia, which delivers 170,000 copies of City Scene, yesterday said company policy was to deliver the newsletter wrapped with other flyers and separately to letterboxes marked "no junk mail".
Fiona Buxton, of Reachmedia, said the company did not provide a service to separately distribute material to unmarked letterboxes.
This was news to the council's communications and marketing manager, Mark Fenwick, who said the council had explicitly asked Reachmedia not to get their walkers to wrap City Scene with other circulars.
Mr Fenwick said when the council received complaints about the newsletter coming wrapped in circulars, it asked Reachmedia to stop doing it "because it drives some people to despair".
"You shouldn't see City Scene enveloped in Foodtown brochures," Mr Fenwick said.
He planned to follow-up the issue with Reachmedia.
He said anyone not receiving City Scene or having delivery problems should contact the council call centre on 379 2020.
Two years ago, the council introduced fines of up to $5000 for distributing unwanted junk mail in full letterboxes or in letterboxes clearly marked "no junk mail".
The bylaw broadly defines junk mail as unsolicited advertising material, including leaflets, brochures and flyers.
It does not include City Scene, which is a registered newspaper.
