Related Articles
Around five tonnes of mail came off the boat on one day over the festive period, while posties’ bags were already bursting at the seams.
The Scotland regional secretary for the Communications Workers Union, Craig Anderson, said the run up to Christmas and the week until New Year was a “crazy” time for his members at Royal Mail.
Mr Anderson highlighted how deliveries of parcels and letters at that time of year goes up by around 60 per cent, while postal staff are left to deal with the influx.
The pressures on Royal Mail workers became apparent when The Shetland Times was alerted to one parcel that took a 366 mile detour on the Scottish mainland before it was delivered two working days later than expected.
However, in Shetland the greatest concern was getting the staff to get mail out on time to households and businesses.
Mr Anderson said he was made aware of a day over the festive period where the Lerwick sorting office was full to the brim, but that same morning around five tonnes of mail was dropped off in town by the NorthLink ferry.
He recognised there was a “significant backlog” that was overloading the postal staff.
“We are going to be looking at these issues,” Mr Anderson told this newspaper.
The Shetland Times was told of one parcel, that was eventually delivered, that had taken a tour around Scotland amid the festive chaos before reaching its intended destination.
A large parcel was sent from a Lanarkshire post office to Lerwick on New Year’s Eve.
The recipient was aware of the delays because of public holidays but was shocked to see their parcel had somehow spent nearly seven hours in transit after leaving the Glasgow mail centre instead of going on an estimated 30 minute journey along the M8 to the airport.
According to the Royal Mail tracker, the parcel had left Glasgow by mistake and was sent to Inverness where the error was spotted. It then was sent to Edinburgh where it was finally diverted back to Glasgow.
It was sent 366 miles just to return back to the Glasgow site. The recipient waited four days – including two public holidays – to receive their parcel after Royal Mail staff corrected the mistake.
“It’s that time of year when traffic is up hugely,” Mr Anderson said when asked about the delivery.
Speaking about the two-working day delay, Mr Anderson said it seemed “alright”, although it should have been avoided.
He added: “There’s been delays worse than that in Shetland, and that’s when the item has been there.”
Royal Mail was asked to comment on the delay but said it was down to an error which saw it “mis-sorted” to Inverness instead of to the Glasgow Airport.
Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.
Source link
