Anger at ‘abysmal’ Royal Mail two weeks delay to Cornwall postal service

Residents in Cornwall have been warned their post could be delayed by two weeks. Royal Mail has been hit by criticism that its service is abysmal after birthday cards, letters and parcels have taken ages to get to their destination, and sometimes arrive in bulk. All over the county people have been reporting long delays even when paying for first class deliveries with only parcels being tracked properly.

Oliver Dobbs, from Truro, told the BBC that for the past two months, letters have tended to arrive in bulk at the end of each week rather than when they should. He said: “That’s something we’ve been noticing in Truro, that we wait until the end of the week and a huge amount of post comes as if it’s Father Christmas coming through.”

As a result of the postal delays, some residents have missed out on hospital and GP appointments and seen important paperwork arrive with an unacceptable delay. He added: “I received a really important business letter which was dated and stamped as going out on September 20 and it didn’t arrive until the 29th. It’s abysmal.”

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Julian Walby, from Winnard’s Perch near Wadebridge, said he waited two weeks for a birthday card from his daughter in Essex which came via the Channel Islands. He told the BBC: “It’s been several months now of delays and sometimes mail comes in bulk. My dad was a postman so I know it’s just not the service it was.

“The mail used to be trustworthy and now you don’t know when it’s going to turn up.”

The Royal Mail said it was aware of issues with its service and insisted it was working hard to restore it and had recruited 3,000 postmen and women over the past six weeks nationwide and continued to fill 500 permanent positions a week in delivery to improve the service.

It also said it would recruit 16,000 extra staff to cope with the additional Christmas demand. The spokesperson added: “We have plans in place and dedicated teams responsible for improving deliveries across Cornwall and throughout our delivery offices nationwide.”