Residents concerns over Royal Mail delays

Residents of a Cheshire town say they are having to collect letters themselves from a Royal Mail depot due to delivery issues.

People in Winsford have faced disruption with some raising concerns about missed medical appointments and delays to important documents arriving.

One resident said she has started collecting her own post at the depot “in desperation”.

Royal Mail said vacancies and sickness are having a “temporary impact” on deliveries.

Alison Wilton said she has had three deliveries in five weeks - and is still waiting to receive some legal documents from October.

“In desperation we started coming to collect our own post,” she said.

She is worried that with the depot being out of the town centre and not on a bus route that not everyone could pick up their post.

“I’m really concerned about everyone who can’t get down to this sorting office or get someone to come and collect their post for them,” she said.

“The Royal Mail, their remit is to deliver post and parcels and they’re not delivering post at the moment to our area,” she said.

Denise Bingham said she saw posts on social media about collecting letters at the depot.

“I needed a couple of things that are Chrtistmas presents that would come in envelopes that I need to send on”.

She said it was around eight weeks since her last delivery at her home.

Ms Bingham also raised concerns about the limited opening hours and lack of public transport access at the depot.

“I think it’s the system that’s broken, it needs fixing,” she said.

One person in the town said that they had missed a hospital appointment because of delays in receiving letters and another was waiting to receive a new bank card.

Royal Mail said that the local teams in Winsford were “working extremely hard to ensure a consistent and reliable service”.

A spokesperson said: “There are currently issues with lower staff numbers at the delivery office, due to vacancies and high sick absence, and this is having a temporary impact on deliveries.

"However, we have measures in place to resolve this and we are continuing to recruit.”

“We would reassure residents that mail continues to be delivered daily.

"If a route is not completed and a home does not receive the mail it is due, we will prioritise it the following day to ensure any delay is kept to a minimum.”

Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom’s director of enforcement said: “Royal Mail’s role in our lives carries huge responsibility and we know from our research that customers value reliability and consistency.

“The company’s recent performance has let consumers down, and the fine we issued to Royal Mail last month should act as a wake-up call – it must take its responsibilities more seriously.

“We’ll continue to hold Royal Mail to account to make sure it improves service levels.”