Adrian: ‘Why did a letter from Hanley to Heron Cross take at least a week to arrive?’

Resident Adrian Allen has been left baffled – after it took over a week for a letter to get from Hanley to Heron Cross.

And Adrian, of Blurton, has branded the service provided by Royal Mail as ‘sub-standard’.

He raised the issue in a letter to The Sentinel where he outlined the difficulties he had experienced after registering his late father’s death.

More Stoke-on-Trent news

He wrote: “I would like to draw the attention of your readers to the appalling service provided by Royal Mail within Stoke-on-Trent at this time.

“My father died recently and I duly registered his death with the registrar who issued a death certificate and a reference for the Tell Us Once service.

“This was posted first class from Hanley and needed to travel only as far as Heron Cross.

“This letter took over a week to arrive, meaning I was not able to deal with the raft of administration that is associated with a death.

“No doubt Royal Mail will fall back on what has now become a stock excuse for every organisation providing a sub-standard service, namely Covid or ‘working from home’.

“Royal Mail has skilfully created a system where complaints are blocked, with published phone numbers being changed to non-operational ones and a complaints system online that needs a specialist to wade through.

“Going through my father’s belongings, I found letters between him and my mother in the late 1940s.

“Reading the content of these many letters, it appears that in those days any letter posted on one day arrived the next.

Want to make sure you never miss the most important headlines from Stoke-on-Trent daily?

If you have an email address, then you’re sorted.

All you need to do is sign up to our daily email alerts, and you’ll get them sent straight to your inbox.

What are they?

Our newsletters are sent out in the morning, afternoon and evening. They’re a digest of all the most important local headlines of the day in an easy to read format. We will also send you breaking news alerts, so you’ll get the news when it happens.

What do I have to do?

All you need to do is follow this link and click which newsletters you want to receive. And there isn’t just the main news email – there are Stoke City and Port Vale newsletters, our Way We Were nostalgia weekly email, and many others that might be of interest.

Am I stuck with it once I sign up?

We know how irritating it is to find your inbox filling up with emails you don’t want. If you decide you don’t want to receive the newsletters any more, just click the unsubscribe box and you won’t get them again. But you can always sign up again whenever you like.

Will it cost me anything?

No, the newsletters are absolutely free. All it’ll cost you is the time to input your email address and chose which newsletters you want to receive.

Can I try it before I sign up?

Certainly. Click this link and you’ll see what you can expect.

So how do I sign up? Just click here and you’re ready to go.

“It would be interesting to hear from any executive at Royal Mail why they charge a high price for a service they cannot seem to deliver, and why it should take well over a week for a letter to travel less than five miles across the city.”

Meanwhile, Adrian isn’t the only unhappy city resident.

Mike Rathbone, also of Stoke-on-Trent, wrote: “What has happened to our once great postal service?

“Not so long ago, we had two deliveries per day. You could almost set your clocks to the post arriving through your door.

“Then they got rid of first-class delivery and we suddenly only had one delivery per day over the six days.

“Oh, how I long for those days. We are lucky now if we get three or four deliveries per week, and you don’t know which three or four days that may be. Come on Royal Mail managers – get your act together.

“You could blame Covid but even through that we had a better service.”

Royal Mail is posting regular updates on its website.

A service update from Thursday stated: “Deliveries are operating as normal across most of the country today. We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week.

“In a small number of local offices this may temporarily not be possible due to local issues such as Covid-related self-isolation, high levels of sick absence, resourcing, or other local factors.

“In those cases we will rotate deliveries to minimise the delay to individual customers. We also provide targeted support to those offices to address their challenges and restore our service to the high standard our customers would normally receive.”

Got something to say about this story? Join the conversation by clicking on the green comments icon at the top of this page or the picture box