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The cost of a first-class stamp may have recently been increased to £1.25 – or £1.95 for a “large” letter – but the service delivered by the Royal Mail for households across much of Croydon has deteriorated to the point of non-existence.
Snail mail: some Inside Croydon readers have not seen their postie for weeks
Some Inside Croydon readers have been in contact to say that they have been going for whole weeks without any reliable post deliveries. They say that the delays and missed deliveries have been going on for perhaps three months, with no explanation or apology.
And sources at Royal Mail have suggested that the major delivery office on Factory Lane which handles post for the CR0 postcode area could be close to having a delivery target imposed where they can only guarantee that your local postie will be troubling your letter box just once a week.
“We go days without any delivery whatsoever,” one troubled reader told iC. “The service now is worse than at any time after the pandemic lockdown, when sorting offices were badly hit by covid outbreaks among their staff.”
Some areas of the borough were hard-hit over Christmas 2020 and January 2021, with no deliveries for weeks, after an influx of Christmas casual staff saw an outbreak of the virus through several sorting offices and many staff forced to self-isolate. Presents, Christmas cards and other important documents – including medical appointments for covid vaccinations – went undelivered for weeks.
Royal Mail today refused to say whether the latest deterioration in its delivery service might be because of any outbreak of covid among its staff.
Big patch: Royal Mail is apologising for its lack of service in CR0. Again
They did, though, deny that the Factory Lane sorting office had been placed on a once-a-week service target. If daily deliveries are not possible, the next level of service target that Royal Mail works to is a delivery to any address every other day.
“I can confirm we are not operating to a target of delivering mail to addresses once a week,” a Royal Mail spokesperson told Inside Croydon.
“There are delays in the area which we apologise for.
“This is often in part due to staffing issues brought on by sick absence and vacancies.
“Every effort is being made to ensure mail is delivered on time, and if a person has mail and does not receive it on the day they expect we do try to prioritise their delivery the next day.”
CR0, one of the postcodes handled by the Factory Lane office, is the most populous postcode district in England and Wales, with more than 150,000 people living in the area – making it about six times bigger than the average postcode population.
CR0 covers a large geographic area, from parts of Thornton Heath to New Addington, and also taking in the town centre, Addiscombe, Selhurst, Broad Green, Shirley, Forestdale, Waddon and parts of Woodside, as well as Beddington (which isn’t even in Croydon).
- Have YOU been experiencing delayed post deliveries? Or no deliveries at all? Write to Inside Croydon – by email to inside.croydon@btinternet.com, obviously; it might never arrive if you relay on the post – with details of your area and postcode, the last time you saw your postie, or how the delays have affected you
For more information, visit www.getmyt.com
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
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