Is there post today? Royal Mail delivery dates for Christmas 2022 and if Post Offices are open on 27 December

Christmas post has been severely affected this year by a series of strikes involving Royal Mail workers, which led to the last festive postage dates being moved to earlier in December.

And that was before you factored in the Christmas bank holidays, which give many of us a four-day weekend this year, but affect everything from supermarket opening times and bin collection days to postal services.

With Tuesday 27 December another bank holiday, here’s everything you need to know about Royal Mail deliveries.

Is there post today?

Royal Mail delivers and collects mail on most days of the year, including Saturdays, but not on bank holidays.

This means there was no post not only on Boxing Day, but also on Tuesday 27 December, as this is the substitute bank holiday for Christmas Day.

With strikes affecting deliveries before Christmas Day, it means that when regular post resumes on Wednesday 28 December, many people will receive their mail for the first time since Thursday 22 December.

There will also be no collections or deliveries on Monday 2 January, due to that being a substitute bank holiday for New Year’s Day.

Opening policies for Post Offices vary around the UK, and can depend on if they are local or main branches (and if the retailers they are housed within are open too).

The best way to check your local branch’s bank holiday opening times is by entering your postcode into the branch finder here.

Will there be more Royal Mail strikes?

The long-running series of Royal Mail strikes caused significant disruption in the build-up to Christmas, with the last walkouts coming on Friday 23 and Saturday 24 December.

There are no further strike dates currently confirmed for 2023, but the dispute between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) shows little sign of reaching a conclusion.

Andy Furey, the CWU’s acting deputy general secretary, said earlier in December that an offer from the union to the Royal Mail had been “thrown back in our face”, adding there were “no further talks planned at this stage”.

Ahead of the recent pre-Christmas strikes the CWU said: “An offer extended to the company to suspend the strikes and establish a period of calm from now until 16 January 2023, as well as the union and the company both signing a joint statement incorporating Royal Mail’s latest promise of no compulsory redundancies, was rejected almost immediately.”

On its website, the CWU states: “The pay dispute is not complicated. Our members are striking for a pay rise that fully addresses the current cost of living. Our members need it, our members deserve it – the company can afford it.”

However, Royal Mail stated previously that it had made its “best and final offer” aimed at resolving the dispute with CWU workers.

The company said that its revised offer included “extensive improvements” that have been made during the negotiations with the CWU, including an enhanced pay deal of up to 9 per cent over 18 months.

It adds: “We’re urging CWU leadership to accept the change and pay offer, call off future damaging strike action, for the good of our customers and our people.

“We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience the CWU’s continued strike action will cause.”

Simon Thompson, Royal Mail’s chief executive, said: “Talks have lasted for seven months and we have made numerous improvements and two pay offers.”

Why is Tuesday 27 December a bank holiday?

Usually, the whole of the UK gets three bank holidays during the festive period.

These are on Christmas Day (25 December), Boxing Day (26 December) and New Year’s Day (1 January) – Scotland then gets an additional day off on 2 January.

However, when these dates fall on a weekend, the holidays are moved to substitute days to ensure people don’t miss out, which tends to result in a bumper long weekend for celebrations.

This year, both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fell on Sunday, so these dates were moved – it means that the UK-wide festive bank holidays will be as follows:

Because the bank holiday on 2 January clashes with the usual date of Scotland’s additional day off, this will be moved to Tuesday 3 January.