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The main sorting office for Brighton has slashed its opening hours amid staff shortages and postal delays.
Royal Mail’s sorting office in North Road used to open from 8am to 6 or 7pm most days, except a half day on Monday and Sunday opening hours of 11am to 3pm.
But it will now only be open for four hours a day, except Mondays when it will only be open for two hours and Sunday when it will be closed.
People living in several areas of Brighton have complained that post is taking weeks to arrive, if it turns up at all.
And many have been resorting to regularly going to the sorting office to see if there’s any mail to collect rather than relying on deliveries.
Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas said: “The way in which Royal Mail is treating my constituents is frankly appalling.
“Post isn’t being delivered for days or even weeks at a time, meaning constituents are being forced to pick items up from the sorting office even more frequently than usual – yet it’s barely even open.
“This is the only sorting office in my entire constituency, serving almost 100,000 people, yet it’s only accessible for 22 hours in the entire week.
“This situation simply isn’t sustainable. I’ve raised Royal Mail’s utterly inadequate delivery service with them on several occasions, and will continue to do so as a matter of urgency.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We understand the importance that some customers attach to Customer Service Points (CSPs) as one of a number of ways in which they can access our services.
“An increase in doorstep services such as Parcel Collect and Safeplace are helping us to enhance customer convenience and deliver more parcels first time.
“In May this year, we also introduced automatic redelivery of parcels the next working day across the UK for customers who are not at home when posties attempt to deliver the first time.
“Over 99% of parcels are now successfully delivered to customers on the first or second delivery attempt. This is reducing the need for customers to collect parcels from CSPs.
“To keep pace with the changing behaviour of our customers, we are amending the opening hours of CSPs. We have a range of options free-of-charge for customers who want to arrange for an item to be redelivered.
“We are sorry to residents who have experienced delays in Brighton. Improving our quality of service is our top priority and we are committed to restoring service levels to where our customers expect them to be.
“At the local delivery office, there have been recent issues with staffing levels which have been affected by vacancies and sick absences. We have been actively recruiting to fill these gaps and have brought in additional casual workers to help with the demand.
“Every effort is being made to keep delays to a minimum. Post continues to be delivered, and those who have mail and do not receive it on the day they expect, will always be prioritised the following day.
“Across our business we have plans in place to drive service levels and reduce absence at our delivery offices, we hope and expect to see further progress in the coming months.”
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