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Postal delays in Cheshire have been blamed on a combination of “a higher than normal rate” of staff sickness and revised delivery routes.
The standard of service currently being provided by Royal Mail in parts of the county is not even worthy of being described as “second class”, according to angry Weaver Vale MP Mike Amesbury.
He says he has been “inundated” with complaints over delayed letters and parcels from “distressed” residents in Northwich, including outlying areas Kingsmead, Hartford and Weaverham, as well as Frodsham and Helsby.
Read more of the top stories from across Cheshire here.
Mr Amesbury is calling for Royal Mail to carry out a major recruitment drive to address the situation.
Royal Mail told CheshireLive it was working hard to get the service back up to speed and they have taken on extra agency staff in order to achieve this.
A furious Mr Amesbury said: “I have raised the matter with local management and the CWU union and have now taken it up with the Royal Mail and the regulator at a national level.
“I’ve got evidence of constituents becoming distressed because they are waiting for letters about urgent medical appointments that have got stuck in the backlog. It’s not good enough. This isn’t even a second class service at the moment.
“Royal Mail needs to make recruitment its priority. I think they’re just so under-resourced at the moment.”
He added: “The lead-up to Christmas is always busy. And in some cases rounds have been changed to manage the general increase in parcels compared with letters. It seems an interesting time to make such a change in terms of the business cycle.
“There are issues around new housing where rounds have not been allocated. So they’re struggling to service allocated rounds and then you get new build, with postal workers asked to cover that on top.
“You’ve also got staff either off because they’ve got Covid or having to self-isolate. And there are staff recruitment and retention problems.
“I know posties who love the job but some may have discovered other things during the pandemic and found other work.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “In recent weeks, we have implemented revisions to our postmen and women’s routes in Cheshire to ensure they reflect changes in the local area, such as new residential developments, and are fairer and more balanced to reflect the growth in parcel deliveries.
“Unfortunately, these changes also coincided with a higher than normal rate of sickness absence which has placed additional pressure on the operation.
“To address these challenges, we have taken on extra agency staff and are providing targeted support to the local office to restore our services to the high standard our customers would normally receive.
“We apologise to customers for any inconvenience they may have experienced and we are working hard to get our levels of service back to normal as soon as possible.
“Anyone who has concerns over the delivery of their mail should contact the Royal Mail customer service team on 03457 740 740 or via the Royal Mail website www.royalmail.com.”
