Nusrat Ghani, MP for Sussex Weald, said she wanted to understand the challenges of delivering letters and parcels during the busy Christmas period and to express her gratitude to the postal workers for their year-round efforts.
Christmas is the busiest time for Royal Mail, with approximately double the usual volume of letters and parcels.
Ms Ghani spoke with customer operations manager Paul Collyer about Royal Mail’s strategy to ensure the festive period runs smoothly.
Across the UK, Royal Mail has recruited 16,000 temporary workers to assist its 85,000 posties in sorting the additional mail and increasing number of parcels expected over the festive period.
Almost 4,000 new vans, trucks, and trailers are being added to the fleet in time for Christmas.
Ms Ghani was pleased to learn that the Crowborough delivery office has hired three temporary staff members for the Christmas period to meet the increased demand for deliveries.
This is in addition to the four new permanent recruits who have joined the office in the last month.
Ms Ghani said: “Christmas is the busiest time of year for our posties, and I was pleased to visit the Crowborough delivery office to thank the local team for all the hard work they do in all kinds of weather, all year round, to get post to Sussex Weald residents.
“Having just sent out nearly 2,000 Christmas cards myself, it was insightful to see how the operation of mail delivery works during this time of year.
“I appreciate that we’ve had delays to local postal deliveries due to staffing issues in the past, so I very much welcome the news of additional recruitment to keep up with demand this Christmas.”
Mr Collyer said: “It was great to have Nusrat visit our delivery office, and to show her how we are gearing up for our peak period.
“We are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas for our customers.”